Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Life Cycle of a Sphagnum Moss

When one works with Sphagnum moss, its good to know how it grows and reproduces. Mosses have different life cycles than plants or animals, that most people are completely unaware of. They have an "alternation of generations" which means the haploid (N) and diploid (2N) stages of life are multicellular and long lived. The 'ploidy' relates to how many sets of chromosomes you have. If you are 2N, you have one set of chromosomes from your mother, and one set of chromosomes from your father. If you are N, you only contain one set of chromosomes, either from your mother or from your father. Lets start the life cycle with a spore.