New Insights on Atmospheric Fern Spore Dynamics

Abstract

[EN] of around half a million spores per year and individual in Cyathea arborea (L.) Sm. (Conant 1978), 50 million spores in Dryopteris intermedia (Muhl. ex Willd.) A. Gray, 90 million in Osmunda claytoniana L. (Mickel 1982) or up to 100 million spores in Dryopteris filix-mas (L.) Schott (Schneller 1975). The dispersion of these spores is mainly through wind, except in aquatic species (Sharpe et al. 2010), although there are some cases of spore dispersal by animals (Boch et al. 2016). However, the dispersal capacity of the spores is controversial, with some authors claiming that their potential capacity is high (Schneller and Liebst 2007) and others claiming that they are a few metres away from the sporophyte producer (Penrod and McCormick 1996). Recent studies support a limited wind dispersion capacity strongly influenced by the lipid and moisture content of the spores (Gómez-Noguez et al. 2016). In the case of spores dispersed by animals, there is also scattering at short distances, such as slugs passing through the digestive tract (Boch et al. 2013), or at long distances through bats (Sugita et al. 2013). In this chapter we will focus on the airborne spores of ferns and lycopods, updating the advances and applications discussed by Rodríguez de la Cruz et al. (2010) and incorporating notes on spore morphology as well as a simple identification key for the different genera identified in the atmosphere