Azolla caroliniana (Mosquito Fern)
Credit: Carl Rothfels
about the species
Azolla caroliniana is a small, free-floating aquatic fern from the order Salviniales found in relatively still waters, ponds, and lakes, both in the water and along its edges. Unlike other true ferns, A. caroliniana and other members of its order are heterosporous. Like other members of its genus, A. caroliniana is a nitrogen fixer, and can sequester large amounts of carbon due to their rapid annual blooms and busts.
why species was selected
These plants are also ecologically and economically significant as nitrogen fixers, providing organically available nitrogen to not only natural systems, but to agricultural ones. In addition, they can also act as a substantial carbon sink under the right conditions.
Associated Publications:
Michael J Song, Yanã C Rizzieri, Fay-Wei Li, Forrest Freund, Merly Escalona, Erin Toffelmier, Courtney Miller, H Bradley Shaffer, Oanh Nguyen, Mohan P A Marimuthu, Noravit Chumchim, Carrie Tribble, Colin W Fairbairn, William Seligmann, Carl J Rothfels, The genome assembly of the duckweed fern, Azolla caroliniana, Journal of Heredity, Volume 116, Issue 5, September 2025, Pages 691–701, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esaf022
Song, M. J., F. Freund, C. M. Tribble, E. Toffelmier, C. Miller, H. B. Shaffer, F.-W. Li, and C. J. Rothfels. 2025. The nitrogen-fixing fern Azolla has a complex microbiome characterized by varying degrees of cophylogenetic signal. American Journal of Botany 112: e70010. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.70010
