Syntrichia caninervis isolate:UNLV-B-0003721 | cultivar:Stark NV-107 Genome sequencing

As global climate change increases, the scarcity of water and the need for drought and heat resilient crops has led to a surge of interest in extremophile plants. Plants that express vegetative desiccation tolerance offer genomic resources that can impact the search for new crop improvements. The desert biocrust moss, Syntrichia caninervis, survives extremes of dehydration and heat and offers novel insights into a low water lifestyle. Its position in the land plant phylogeny also offers a unique opportunity for comparative genomics to discover genes related to cellular level adaptation to extreme environments. The initial phase was to establish this reference genome