Sunday 6th August 2023
I partially wrote this during my trip the the Galápagos Islands in the summer. I have finally got it finished. This is part 1 of the Galapagos mosses – or the absence of them.
The Galápagos Islands are a dream destination for most wildlife enthusiasts. I was lucky enough to have an amazing week cruising around the islands. I have kept a separate travel blog here. As you will know by now, I have an interest (obsession) with moss. So I did a little research before travelling and came to dead ends on moss. The otherwise fantastic Collins Guide gives just a few measly sentences to bryophytes, mosses and liverworts:
Over 110 species of liverwort and 90 species of moss have been described in the Galapagos. As with ferns identification is very technical. Frullania aculeata, a liver wort, can be identified. It is a brown moss like species that adorns many trees in the Scalesia and brown zones.
Fitter, Fitter & Hosking (2007) Collin’s travellers guide. Wildlife of the Galápagos. Second edition. P. 210
I was finding it hard to believe that moss was of such little interest on these remote islands.
We visited several islands and there was no signs of moss. A few had lichen in the sparse trees. We visited mainly the low lands of the Galápagos Islands, including Rabida. Rabida beach and surroundings are like a Martian landscape – red soil and red lava rocks. Unlike Mars, the main vegetation is (very dry) grass, opuntia cacti and low growing Pablo Santo (Bursera graveolens) trees. It is the Pablo Santo trees that have some lichen growing on their dead looking branches. There is no sign of moss on the rocks, the soil, the trunks or branches of trees. It seems moss free.
I’ve always considered moss to be a pioneer species and so was expecting it to have found some crevices at the shores of this lands to latch on and take hold, starting the succession process. Alas it seems that that Galápagos Islands are so inhospitable that the pioneer species on the lava flows is the lava cactus (Brachycereus nesioticus)
Perhaps it is the arid state of these islands, the remoteness may make it hard for moss spores to be delivered to the lava field via air, rain, ocean or animal. Mosses aren’t that fond of marine environments and the Galápagos Islands are in the middle of Pacific Ocean.
We visited a few other islands and again – mossless. The solid lava fields of Fernandina were populated with patches of the candle stick like lava cactus (above).
Can the Galapagos really be one of the few mossless habitats in the world? Thankfully not. Read the next in this Mossing Around the World series of blogs. The highlands of some of the Galapagos islands is home to masses of mosses.
Read more of the Mossing Around the World blogs here.
If you want to read more about my Galapagos Adventures- I kept a blog.
Moss Safari 