Campylopus julaceus, Een (1989)

T, Cíntia Aparecida, Araújo, eixeira, Peñaloza-Bojacá, Gabriel Felipe, De, Bárbara Azevedo, Oliveira & Maciel-Silva, Adaíses S., 2020, A morphometric comparison of two sympatric Campylopus Brid. (Leucobryaceae, Bryophyta) species, Cryptogamie, Bryologie 20 (19), pp. 239-253 : 251-252

CAMPYLOPUS JULACEUS IS OFTEN FOUND BEARING SEXUAL STRUCTURES, WHILE C. LAMELLATUS IS USUALLY FOUND WITHOUT THEM

Santos (2011) highlighted that C. julaceus is often found growing alongside C. lamellatus , and often so with gametangia,

whereas C. lamellatus is sterile (non sex-expressing). Variations in the leaves of the comal tuft may therefore be related to morphological differences between individuals expressing or not expressing sex – which is commonly recorded in species of the genus Campylopus ( Frahm 1991) . In fact, among the shoots of C. lamellatus analyzed in this study (including the mixed samples), a few plants showed sexual reproduction structures, whereas the shoots of C. julaceus commonly had sexual organs. The presence of non sex-expressing gametophytes is quite common, and the absence of sporophytes is frequently associated with a dioicous condition; the spatial segregation of sexes can influence sexual expression, thus C. julaceus may simply be the reproductive stage of C. lamellatus , with variations in sexual expression being linked to the elevation, year, life cycle stage, substrate, or growing conditions ( Longton & Schuster 1983; Korpelainen 1998; Bisang & Hedenäs 2005; Stark et al. 2005).

PROPAGULA OF C. JULACEUS ARE VIABLE FOR EFFECTIVE PROPAGATION

Approximately 50 to 60% of the C. julaceus propagula regenerated in the experiment, readily forming rhizoids and chloronema. Since the comal tuft always present sexual structures

associated to several asexual propagula, the above data indicate that the plants invest in the production of sexual structures at the same time as they invest in viable asexual reproduction. As Frey & Kürschner (2011) noted, clonal reproduction confers ecological advantages to the species by balancing the difficulties of mating and the difficulties created by their disproportionate sex ratios. Campylopus julaceus (and likely C. lamellatus ), even failing to produce sporophytes, may take advantage of the asexual reproduction. Regeneration success was similar between the RM and GA sites, revealing that both areas provided suitable conditions for producing viable propagula, and that those propagula are capable of regenerating new plants. All of the samples had propagula, suggesting that they are constantly produced by the gametophytes.