as small as a world and as large as alone

6:31am July 20, 2015

typhlonectes:

Cushion plants harbour tiny mountain worlds inside

by Sandhya Sekar

They look like comfy cushions from the outside, but inside they contain mini-ecosystems, sheltered from the harsh mountain environment around them.

One of the best ways for mountain plants to maximise their chances of survival in extremes of wind and temperature is to form a dome shape. Hundreds of species do it, including the two-flower cinquefoil.

Now it appears that many more species, from microbes to animals, exploit these domes too. Within each cushion plant’s structure is a totally different world – a sheltered microcosm with moderate temperatures, higher moisture and good soil.

“They form a shape that can be compared to a turtle,” says Fabien Anthelme of the French Institute for Development Research based in La Paz, Bolivia, who studies alpine plants. “It allows them to develop their own microenvironment, which is moist, warm and rich in nutrients.”

Working in the Altai mountains of Siberia, between 1750 and 4000 metres above sea level, Igor Volkov and Irina Volkova from the Tomsk State University found that temperatures fluctuated much less within domes than outside, where they could vary from well below freezing to 15 °C over the course of a day. Inside, it remained a relatively benign 5 to 7 °C…

(read more: New Scientist)

photograph by Chris Mattison/Naturepl.com

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