Origins

Mosses carry long evolutionary histories in small bodies. In this world, we ask where moss lineages come from, how they are related, and how their traits have changed over time.

Our work in this world combines systematics, phylogenetics, genomics, morphology, and field collections to understand moss diversity across landscapes and lineages. We are especially interested in Syntrichia and related dryland mosses, but the broader goal is to understand how mosses diversify, persist, and evolve across deep time.

Some of our questions include:

  • What are these species, and how are they related?
  • How have moss lineages moved across deserts, mountains, and other stressful environments?
  • How do reproductive systems, life histories, and stress-tolerant traits evolve?
  • What can mosses reveal about plant evolution beyond traditional model systems?

This world is where taxonomy, evolution, phylogenomics, and natural history meet.

Papers in this research area:

Rose A. Marks, R. Shawn Abrahams, Jenna T. B. Ekwealor (2026). Shaped by context: Evolutionary trajectories of desiccation tolerance in land plants. American Journal of Botany.

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Rose A. Marks, Jenna T. B. Ekwealor, Mariana A. S. Artur, Luis Bondi, Thomas C. Boothby, Olivia M. S. Carmo, Danilo C. Centeno, Kirsten K. Coe, Halford J. W. Dace, S. Field, A. Hutt, Stefan Porembski, A. Thalhammer, Llewelyn van der Pas, Andrew J. Wood, Peter Alpert, D. Bartels, Steven Boeynaems, Mandar N. Datar, Tabea Giese, W. I. Seidou, S. M. Kirchner, Julius Köhler, U. G. V. S. S. Kumara, Jinseul Kyung, Rafe Lyall, Joelle B. V. T. Ndongmo, M. S. Otegui, Viloshanie Reddy, J. Rexroth, Shandry M. Tebele, Robert VanBuren, Jerome Verdier, Ute C. Vothknecht, M. F. Wittenberg, E. Zokov, Seung Y. Rhee, Brent D. Mishler, Anderson T. Silva, Li'ang Yu, Andrea K. Jones, Andrew D. L. Nelson, Melvin J. Oliver (2025). Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications. Nature Communications.

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Jenna T. B. Ekwealor, Kirsten M. Fisher (2024). Reproduction and population dynamics in autonomous gametophytes. International Journal of Plant Sciences.

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Xiaodan Zhang, Jenna T. B. Ekwealor, Brent D. Mishler, Anderson T. Silva, Li'ang Yu, Andrea K. Jones, Andrew D. L. Nelson, Melvin J. Oliver (2024). Syntrichia ruralis: emerging model moss genome reveals a conserved and previously unknown regulator of desiccation in flowering plants. New Phytologist.

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Jenna T. B. Ekwealor, Scott W. Roy (2023). Sex chromosomes: How to make a hermaphrodite. Current Biology.

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Anderson T. Silva, Bei Gao, Kirsten M. Fisher, Brent D. Mishler, Jenna T. B. Ekwealor, Lloyd R. Stark, Xiaoshuang Li, Daoyuan Zhang, Matthew A. Bowker, John C. Brinda, Kirsten K. Coe, Melvin J. Oliver (2020). To dry perchance to live: insights from the genome of the desiccation-tolerant biocrust moss Syntrichia caninervis. The Plant Journal.

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Ongoing projects in this research area:

Evolution of cosexuality and sex chromosomes in mosses

How do reproductive systems evolve in mosses, and what genomic changes accompany shifts in sexual strategy?

Systematics and population genomics of western Syntrichia

How are western North American Syntrichia lineages related, distributed, and adapted?