Long-distance transport in non-vascular plants

Many macroalgae have significant spatial differentiation involving higher rate resource use at a site than of acquisition of that resource from the environment at that site. Long-distance symplasmic transport of solutes occurs in some large green algae where the solutes are moved in streaming cytoplasm. In some large brown algae there is evidence of long-distance symplasmic transport of organic C and other solutes. Structural and physiological data suggest that while the transport in 'sieve tubes' of Macrocystis might be by a Munch pressure flow mechanism the transport in many other brown algae is less likely to be by this mechanism. Less is known of long-distance symplasmic transport in red algae. In terrestrial bryophytes transpiration occurs and in some liverworts and many mosses (but not in hornworts) there are files of dead cells in their tissues which may, and in some cases certainly, function in long-distance apoplasmic water transport. The hydraulic conductivity of these conduits is poorly characterized. Long-distance symplasmic transport in some mosses have been characterized both structurally and physiologically, but in other mosses and in liverworts the evidence is only structural. Most of these symplasmic transport pathways seem to have a high resistance to flow.