From old to new - 1,500 years in permafrost and growing

Specimens of moss that have been frozen for more than 1500 years in the Antarctic have successfully been revived by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Reading. Cores taken from frozen ice banks were carefully prepared and  cultivated in an incubator under normal growth temperature and light levels. After only a few weeks, the moss began to grow. Using carbon dating, the team identified the moss to be at least 1,530 years of age, and possibly even older, at the depth where the new growth was seen.

As the dominant plants in both polar regions, mosses are major storers of fixed carbon and play an important role in glacial environments. This study* is the first to indicate such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria.

Professor Peter Convey from the British Antarctic Survey explains:

“What mosses do in the ecosystem is far more important than we would generally realise when we look at a moss on a wall here for instance. Understanding what controls their growth and distribution, particularly in a fast-changing part of the world such as the Antarctic Peninsula region, is therefore of much wider significance.”

“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought. These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance, such as the Little Ice Age in Europe.

“If they can survive in this way, then recolonisation following an ice age, once the ice retreats, would be a lot easier than migrating trans-oceanic distances from warmer regions. It also maintains diversity in an area that would otherwise be wiped clean of life by the ice advance.

“Although it would be a big jump from the current finding, this does raise the possibility of complex life forms surviving even longer periods once encased in permafrost or ice.”

Reference

*Millennial timescale regeneration in a moss from Antarctica by Esme Roads, Royce E. Longton and Peter Convey; Current Biology, 17 March 2014.