Narrow habitat specialists must evolve directed, not windborne, dispersal

Evidence

Since Splachnum can grow only on droppings, and nowhere else, the wind cannot be trusted with dispersal. Escape of the spores is successful only if they have both a means of travel and a reserved ticket for a particular destination. In the monotonous green of the bog, flies are attracted to the cotton candy colors of Splachnum , mistaking them for flowers. Rooting about in the moss for non-existent nectar the flies become coated with the sticky spores. When the scent of fresh deer droppings arrives on the breeze, the flies seek it out and leave Splachnum-coated footprints in the steaming dung. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 498

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how a plant that requires an exact, rare destination evolved targeted dispersal — nature’s delivery system as a model for precision.
• XREF: Windborne-vs-directed dispersal maps directly to soundscape’s signal-versus-noise frame and to disturbance ecology on cliffs and logs. — connects to: Moss species occupy strikingly narrow, even single-host, habitat niches. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 486