A research agenda for nonvascular photoautotrophs under climate change

Abstract

Nonvascular photoautotrophs (NVP), including bryophytes, lichens, terrestrial algae, and cyanobacteria, are increasingly recognized as being essential to ecosystem functioning in many regions of the world. Current research suggests that climate change may pose a substantial threat to NVP, but the extent to which this will affect the associated ecosystem functions and services is highly uncertain. Here, we propose a research agenda to address this urgent question, focusing on physiological and ecological processes that link NVP to ecosystem functions while also taking into account the substantial taxonomic diversity across multiple ecosystem types. Accordingly, we developed a new categorization scheme, based on microclimatic gradients, which simplifies the high physiological and morphological diversity of NVP and world-wide distribution with respect to several broad habitat types. We found that habitat-specific ecosystem functions of NVP will likely be substantially affected by climate change, and more quantitative process understanding is required on (1) potential for acclimation, (2) response to elevated CO 2 , (3) role of the microbiome, and (4) feedback to (micro)climate. We suggest an integrative approach of innovative, multimethod laboratory and field experiments and ecophysiological modelling, for which sustained scientific collaboration on NVP research will be essential.

Moss functional trait ecology: Trends, gaps, and biases in the current literature

“…Research across these different global regions has also focused on different suites of traits with, for example, East/Central Asian work placing a stronger emphasis on nutrient uptake/cycling/storage and biomass/NPP, while European and North American work in those topics has generally had a broader focus across trait categories (Figure 5). Importantly, trait data from all of the tropical regions and the southern hemisphere are sorely needed if global models incorporating the influence of bryophytes on soil, nutrient, and hydrological processes are to be accurate and representative (for models, see e.g., Eldridge et al, 2023; Porada et al, 2023).…”

Regionally Varying Habitat Relationships in Lichens: The Concept and Evidence with an Emphasis on North-Temperate Ecosystems

“…Unless proven otherwise, ‘ecotypes’ could thus be seen as potential evolutionarily significant units or a bet-hedging strategy for addressing the climate change and land-use change-related challenges to biodiversity. This option (and the habitat-shift potential more generally) seems to be so far absent in the mainstream thinking on climate change response in lichens (e.g., [ 282 ]).…”

Species–area relationship in lichens tested in protected areas across Italy

“…habitat loss and global change) could be improved in the case of lichens by protecting larger areas, in a framework of area-based conservation. Larger areas are also more likely to include a higher number of so-called 'microrefugia', sites with locally favourable conditions that are placed outside the main range of a species or that are surrounded by unfavourable habitats, the preservation of which is considered one of the best strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on sensitive lichens (Ellis 2020;Greiser et al 2021;Porada et al 2023), even with recognized limitations (Di ). To date, there is contrasting evidence about the effectiveness of already established protected areas in lichen conservation (Martínez et al 2006;Rubio-Salcedo et al 2013), even though in some cases protected areas have been recognized as lichen diversity hotspots (Nascimbene et al 2022) or refugia for fragmented species at the border of their distributional range (Gheza et al 2021).…”