南极苔藓恢复：在消融大陆上守护古老绿色
Beneath the crushing weight of kilometres of ice, Antarctica has long been imagined as a biological void — a white desert where only the hardiest microbes endure. Yet along its coastal fringes, in brief austral summers, a hidden green world emerges. Cushions of moss, some continuously growing for over five thousand years, form slow-motion oases across the peninsula. These ancient bryophytes, no taller than a finger, are the continent's oldest living land organisms, storing centuries of climate history in their compact tissues. They are, in effect, the planet's quietest chroniclers of change.
Now, that change is accelerating. Regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula — among the fastest on Earth — is desiccating these moss beds at an alarming rate. Warmer air pulls moisture from the shallow meltwater gullies the mosses depend on; stronger winds scour their fragile stems. In the past two decades, once-vibrant green patches have turned reddish-brown and brittle. Scientists from a loose network of polar institutes, working with minimal infrastructure and extreme logistical constraints, have begun a rescue effort that feels almost quixotic: manually transplanting small fragments of healthy moss from stable sites to newly exposed ground that meltwater now seasonally wets, hoping that the ancient genetic lineages will recolonise these unpromising terrains.
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