Researchers have learned to propagate Taiwanese quillwort, a rare semiaquatic herb that is only found near Menghuan Lake (夢幻湖) on Taipei’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) and which is under threat of extinction.
The endemic plant species (Isoetes taiwanensis), which was discovered in 1971, is only found within an area of less than 0.5 hectares around the lake, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute researcher Huang Yao-mou (黃曜謀) said.
Although it grows in a humid subtropical climate zone, the plant faces threats from drought and competition from other species, which almost led to its extinction in 2006, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute via CNA
To preserve the species, Huang said he observed the plant for three to five years, during which he found that it released spores in the soil that survive the winter before germinating in the spring.
Cold winter temperatures help activate the spores, with some germinating the following year and others taking up to 30 years, he said.
He experimented by placing soil samples with Taiwan quillwort spores in a refrigerator at 4°C, removing some of the samples every two weeks.
He found that while the plant’s megaspores normally took an average of 12 weeks to germinate, exposure to sustained cold temperatures could reduce that time to as little as two weeks.
Sixty-three percent of the spores germinated after 20 weeks stored at low temperatures, compared with only 26.5 percent in normal conditions, he said.
More specimens also made it to later stages in the plant’s life cycle, allowing them to be used for educational or research purposes, and assisting in conservation efforts, Huang said.
Taiwan quillworts are the first plants in the genus Isoetes to have their genome sequenced, which is useful in studying the special type of photosynthesis — crassulacean acid metabolism photosynthesis — used by them and some terrestrial plants, he said.
As Isoetes in neighboring countries such as China, Japan and South Korea are almost all hybrids of Taiwanese quillworts, the genome data also helps scientists better understand how it evolved, he said.
Huang and his research team published the results of their study on the effects of cold on Taiwan quillwort spore germination in the twice-yearly Indian Fern Journal in December last year.
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