Global moss diversity: spatial and taxonomic patterns of species richness

Geffert, Jan Laurens; Frahm, Jan‐Peter; Barthlott, Wilhelm; Mutke, Jens

doi:10.1179/1743282012y.0000000038

Cited by 71 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…It is still being debated whether micro‐organisms show clear biogeographic patterns, and what role environmental variables play at regional scales in defining the spatial diversity patterns (Fontaneto et al, ; Nemergut et al, ). Bryophytes, including liverworts, hornworts, and mosses, show high diversity worldwide (Shaw et al, ; von Konrat et al, ; Mutke & Geffert, ; Geffert et al, ), and play important roles in various ecosystems (Glime, ). They reproduce by copious spore production, resulting in a large number of spores that disperse like unicellular organisms, thus making them ideal for examining the species richness–environment relationships of micro‐organisms (Frahm, ; Chen et al, ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal diversity gradients in bryophytes and woody plants: Roles of temperature and water availability

Chen

Slik

Gao

et al. 2015

J of Sytematics Evolution

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It remains unclear whether the latitudinal diversity gradients of micro-and macro-organisms are driven by the same macro-environmental variables. We used the newly completed species catalog and distribution information of bryophytes in China to explore their spatial species richness patterns, and to investigate the underlying roles of energy availability, climatic seasonality, and environmental heterogeneity in shaping these patterns. We then compared these patterns to those found for woody plants. We found that, unlike woody plants, mosses and liverworts showed only weakly negative latitudinal trends in species richness. The spatial patterns of liverwort richness and moss richness were overwhelmingly explained by contemporary environmental variables, although explained variation was lower than that for woody plants. Similar to woody plants, energy and climatic seasonality hypotheses dominate as explanatory variables but show high redundancy in shaping the distribution of bryophytes. Water variables, that is, the annual availability, intra-annual variability and spatial heterogeneity in precipitation, played a predominant role in explaining spatial variation of species richness of bryophytes, especially for liverworts, whereas woody plant richness was affected most by temperature variables. We suggest that further research on spatial patterns of bryophytes should incorporate the knowledge on their ecophysiology and evolution.Key words: biogeography, environmental determinants, latitudinal gradient of diversity, liverworts, micro-organism diversity, mosses.The gradient of increased diversity toward the tropics is observed at various spatial scales and for many taxonomical groups (Willig et al., 2003;Hillebrand, 2004;Field et al., 2009). Understanding the underlying mechanisms of this latitudinal diversity gradient is a major goal in ecology and biogeography (Lomolino et al., 2010). Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the observed spatial variation of species richness at broad scales (Brown et al., 2004;Wiens & Donoghue, 2004). Among these hypotheses, available energy, climatic seasonality, and environmental heterogeneity have been used most frequently to account for the spatial variation in species richness of plants and animals (Hawkins et al., 2003;Clarke & Gaston, 2006;Kreft & Jetz, 2007;Tello & Stevens, 2010;Chen et al., 2014;Dalby et al., 2014;Stein et al., 2014). The available energy (or energy-water dynamics) hypothesis states that regions with higher energy availability harbor more species. However, the form of the species-energy relationship and the mechanisms involved depend on the spatial scale (Evans et al., 2008), taxonomic group (Chen et al., 2011), taxonomic rank (Mao et al., 2013), and the currency of energy (Evans et al., 2005) under study. This, in turn, has led to several specific hypotheses focusing on different aspects of energy availability (Hawkins et al., 2003;Clarke & Gaston, 2006;Wang et al., 2010), such as the productivity hypothesis (or more individuals hypothesis)...

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confidence: 99%

Latitudinal diversity gradients in bryophytes and woody plants: Roles of temperature and water availability

Chen

Slik

Gao

et al. 2015

J of Sytematics Evolution

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“…The island consists of a considerable coverage of forests, which provide numerous habitats with favorable microclimatic conditions like ideal temperature, humidity, pH and light for bryophytes. Sri Lanka records a forest cover of about 20% today facilitating the growth of these tiny plants (Erdelen, 1996) and recorded as one of the species rich countries for bryophytes (Geffert et al, 2013 Mitten (1819Mitten ( -1906 and C. C. Townsend (Rubasinghe and Long, 2014). Most of these collectors have focused the Central highlands of Sri Lanka for moss collections (O'Shea, 2003;Rubasinghe and Long, 2014).…”

Section: Sri Lankan Mossesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moss Flora of Kanneliya Forest Reserve, Sri Lanka

Ruklani¹,

Rubasinghe

2015

Ceylon J. Sci. (Biol. Sci.)

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Bryophytes; liverworts, mosses and hornworts, comprise an important yet poorly researched group of plants in Sri Lanka. Varied climate and topography of the island provide ample habitat diversity for bryophytes. However, the diversity and species richness of the three morphological groups of bryophytes within the country are yet to be discovered. Kanneliya Forest Reserve, a prominent lowland rain forest in the wet zone of Sri Lanka has been a base for much scientific research on both flora and fauna. However, the bryophyte flora within the forest, apart from a few old collections remains unexplored. The present study was undertaken to explore the moss flora of the Kanneliya Forest Reserve and serves as the first taxonomic study on mosses in the forest. Mosses were collected from different habitats of the forest, along with the substrate. They were stored in paper packets labeled with the locality details. Collected samples were observed for their morphological and anatomical characters, using dissecting, light and stereo microscopes. Specimens were identified to their generic/specific level using taxonomic keys, monographs and other available literature. A total of 68 specimens of mosses were collected from different habitats within the forest and 45 specimens were identified to their generic and/or specific level. The moss flora of the Kanneliya Forest Reserve represented 13 families and 21 genera of mosses. Taxonomic descriptions with the characteristic features were prepared for the identified species of mosses. Herbarium specimens prepared for each identified species are deposited at the Department of Botany, University of Peradeniya.

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“…[9] [10]). This research differs in perspective by looking at bryophyte distributions along the forest floor at the landscape scale, at 1 m resolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and Mapping Forest Floor Distributions of Common Bryophytes Using a LiDAR-Derived Depth-to-Water Index

Goguen¹,

Arp²

2017

AJPS

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This article describes how the cartographic depth-to-water (DTW) index in combination with other variables can be used to quantify, model and map the distribution of common forest floor bryophytes, at 1 m resolution. This was done by way of a case study, using 12 terrain and climate representative locations across New Brunswick, Canada. The presence/absence by moss species was determined at each location along upland-to-wetland transects within >10-m spaced 1-m 2 forest floor plots. It was found that Bazzania trilobata, Dicranum polysetum, Polytrichum commune, Hylocomium splendens, and Pleurozium schreberi had greater probabilities of occurrence in welldrained forested areas, whereas Sphagnum fuscum and Sphagnum girgensohnii dominated in low-lying wet areas. The presence/absence of each species was quantified by way of logistic regression analyses, using DTW, slope, canopy closure, forest litter depth, ecosite type (8 classes), nutrient regime (4 classes, poor to rich); vegetation type (deciduous, coniferous, mixed, and shrubs), and macro-and micro-topography (upland, wetland; mounds, pits) as predictor variables. Among these, log 10 DTW and forest litter depth were the most consistent predictor variables, followed by mound versus pit. For the mapping purpose, only log 10 DTW and already mapped classifications for upland versus wetland and vegetation type were used to predict the probability of occurrences for the most frequent moss species, namely, D. polysetum, P. schreberi and Sphagnum spp. The overall accuracy for doing this ranged from 67% to 83%, with false positives and negatives amounting to 18% to 42%. The overall classification accuracy exceeded the probability by chance alone at 76.8%, with the significance level reached at 75.3%. The average level of probability by chance alone was 60.3%.

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Global moss diversity: spatial and taxonomic patterns of species richness

Cited by 71 publications

References 41 publications

Latitudinal diversity gradients in bryophytes and woody plants: Roles of temperature and water availability

Latitudinal diversity gradients in bryophytes and woody plants: Roles of temperature and water availability

Moss Flora of Kanneliya Forest Reserve, Sri Lanka

Modeling and Mapping Forest Floor Distributions of Common Bryophytes Using a LiDAR-Derived Depth-to-Water Index

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