Sodium chloride accumulation in glycophyte plants with cyanobacterial symbionts.

The majority of plant species are glycophytes and are not salt-tolerant and maintain low sodium levels within their tissues; if high tissue sodium concentrations do occur, it is in response to elevated environmental salt levels. Here we report an apparently novel and taxonomically diverse grouping of plants that continuously maintain high tissue sodium contents and share the rare feature of possessing symbiotic cyanobacteria. Leaves of in Tierra del Fuego always had sodium contents (dry weight basis) of around 4.

Bryophyte-cyanobacteria associations during primary succession in recently Deglaciated areas of Tierra del Fuego (Chile).

Bryophyte establishment represents a positive feedback process that enhances soil development in newly exposed terrain. Further, biological nitrogen (N) fixation by cyanobacteria in association with mosses can be an important supply of N to terrestrial ecosystems, however the role of these associations during post-glacial primary succession is not yet fully understood. Here, we analyzed chronosequences in front of two receding glaciers with contrasting climatic conditions (wetter vs drier) at Cordillera Darwin (Tierra del Fuego) and found that most mosses had the capacity to support an epiphytic flora of cyanobacteria and exhibited high rates of N2 fixation.