Cushion Plant Helps Other Plants Survive in Harsh Environment

A recent study by researchers from the University of Gothenburg suggests that alpine cushion plants support other plants, to help them survive in the harsh mountain environments.

A mat forming plant, the cushion plant is spread in alpine, arctic or subarctic environments. They grow as spreading mats and grow a few inches above ground. They often grow very slowly in rocky and sandy soils. They are known for their distinctive round cushion shape. They have a very large tap root. Some of the alpine plants are known to have thick matted hair that act as a greenhouse by preventing warm air from being expelled out of the plant.

This study emphasizes the strong interaction between cushion plants and other plants in the harsh mountain environments. The researchers studied nearly 77 alpine plant communities in five continents.

Robert Bjork, ecologist and researcher at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Earth Sciences was quoted in Phys.Org saying, cushion plants create an additional practical living environment for other species and are considered as the keystone species which offer important conditions that are required for greater biodiversity.  

A protective environment is created by these cushion plants for plants especially in inhospitable places. Based on the severity of the climate, the cushion plants counteract the reduction in phylogenetic diversity.

"If you compare the relationship between the species in the studied global species pool, cushion plants create even more phylogenetically unique plant communities the harsher the environments become, compared to the plant communities found in the adjacent open ground," Bjork says.

The study was published in the journal Ecology Letters.