Phantom hitch-hikers
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Previous studies claimed that Antarctic mosses displayed extraordinarily high levels of genetic variation, possibly due to UV-induced mutation as a result of the Antarctic ozone hole. I used a different genetic marker called ‘microsatellites’ to show that Antarctic mosses did not show evidence of mutation, and that previous studies had probably over-estimated the genetic diversity due to other organisms such as algae growing in Antarctic mosses. In this photo algal cells can be seen as the small clusters of bright orange dots growing on the outside of an Antarctic moss leaf.