Title: A Moss Life Cycle: Dominant Gametophyte - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com
Headings: A Moss Life Cycle: Dominant Gametophyte
A Moss Life Cycle: Dominant Gametophyte
Lesson Transcript
Introduction to Mosses
Review of Alternation of Generations
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
A Moss Life Cycle: Dominant Gametophyte
Start today. Try it now
A Moss Life Cycle: Dominant Gametophyte
Related Study Materials

Content: Haploid' means 'one set of chromosomes' and is commonly abbreviated as N because there is only one copy of the chromosomes. Let's look at a diagram of the basic idea of alternation of generations. We can see in this diagram that the life cycle is broken into N - on the top - and 2 N - on the bottom. In plants, the gametophyte is N and the sporophyte is 2 N.
Diagram of the alternation of generations life cycle

Previously, we used the Garblinx to illustrate the oddity of this. Remember that the diploid or 2 N organism looks like this. However, when it moves into the haploid stage, the Garblinx looks completely different! Two of these haploid organisms will get together and mate in order to produce a new 2 N organism that looks similar to our first Garblinx. This Garblinx will then eventually produce a new haploid organism, and so on. Now that we have a good review of the basics of alternation of generations, let's look at how this process is completed in mosses. The Haploid Stage
Unlike more advanced plants, mosses have a dominant haploid life stage.