In popular media New Zealand is often portrayed as a ‘Lost World’. From Middle-earth to Narnia, from Skull Island to Mythic Greece, New Zealand has often stood in for a director’s idea of a mysterious place that time forgot. This started in the 1960s with In search of the Castaways, a cheesy Disney live action film. I’ve even done this myself in an article on New Zealand’s biological history and how the Lost World might be a useful theme with which to explore why we see such a special biodiversity here.
One way to make a place look ancient in a movie is to drape everything in moss. Moss-covered ruins and trees just look old and mysterious. Walking through the New Zealand bush we usually see a lot of moss, especially in the wetter parts of New Zealand. Moss wrapped around branches and in mounds on the ground gives the vibe that the forest has been unchanging and quiet for a long time.
How accurate is this?
Wendy Kentjens (with David Glenny from Landcare Research, and Tim Curran and Jon Sullivan from Lincoln University) wanted to find out what determines where moss (or bryophytes as they are technically called) grows. She has published a paper about it in NZ Journal of Botany.
Her study site was at the Boyle River near Lewis Pass. At the site there are stretches of beech forest as well as manuka/kanuka areas. And there is a lot of moss, on the branches, on the ground, growing high in trees, even around the streams.
Wendy collected moss samples to identify which species were present. She also looked at lots of environmental factors to see if they created patterns for mosses. She measured things like tree-trunk diameter, canopy cover, ground cover, species of plants, and habitat pH.
Wendy busily trekked around 98 plots where she found 30 species of moss. There were a lot of differences between habitat types, with the stream areas having very different moss species to everywhere else. Beech forest communities were reasonably different to manuka communities, even though they were in close proximity. More moss was found on the damper and darker south sides of trees.
There are a lot of mosses growing in our forests. Are they ancient? Many of the areas at the Boyle, particularly the manuka/kanuka forest, are only a few decades old as they are recovering from being made into pasture. So, mosses are able to colonise and grow in these areas very quickly.
When we look at a moss clad tree or boulder we shouldn’t automatically assume that it has taken centuries to accumulate. These forests are highly changeable systems and moss are just as opportunistic and quick to grow as the surrounding plants.
Mosses may give off the old lost world vibe but they are as young and vibrant as the next plant or lichen. However, if production companies want to come here to spend lots of money on their next historical/fantastical/science-fictiony epic then I guess we can put up with it.
Adrian Paterson is a lecturer in Pest-Management and Conservation at Lincoln University. He generally likes moss, and it does make him think of the Lost World!
Leave a Reply