<p><strong>Centres of moss diversity in southern Africa</strong></p>

Abstract

Moss diversity in southern Africa is greatest in the Cape Fold Mountains of the southwestern Cape, and the Drakensberg mountains along the Great Escarpment of KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces of South Africa. Five main, and five secondary centres of moss diversity are described, based on the number of moss species per half degree grid square in southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland). The main centres are the Southwestern Cape, outeniqua, Amathole, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga Centres of Moss Diversity. The KwaZulu-Natal centre is divided into the Drakensberg and Midlands Subcentres of Moss Diversity and the Mpumalanga centre into the Wolkberg and Blyde Subcentres of Moss Diversity. The secondary centres are the Cederberg, Witteberge, Pondoland, Magaliesberg and Soutpansberg Centres of Moss Diversity. Although collecting bias is responsible for concentrations of species records in many areas, moss diversity is strongly influenced by habitat heterogeneity and mean annual rainfall. This is in agreement with existing hypotheses of a broad-scale correlation between environmental heterogeneity and climate on the one side, and vascular plant diversity and distributions on the other.

Land snail biogeography and endemism in south-eastern Africa: Implications for the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspot

“…Quantitative measures mapped for land snail species richness and endemism reveal similar patterns ( Fig 5 ), with higher values along the south-eastern coastal belt and on the south-eastern escarpment, especially its eastern aspects towards the coastal belt, similar to those for millipedes [ 94 , 95 ], vertebrates [ 24 ], bryophytes [ 96 ] and higher plants [ 20 ]. The Highveld and Bushveld provinces are generally species- as well as endemic-poor, although the Bushveld supports more land snail endemics compared to the Highveld ( Fig 5E ), which could possibly be attributed to the comparatively higher habitat heterogeneity in the Bushveld that provide sheltering microhabitats into which snails can retreat, supported by the higher spatial area covered by Bushveld, and again to the supposedly stable and milder climate in the Bushveld (see the role of forests discussed above) compared to that of the Highveld characterized by drought, frost, waterlogging and wildfire causing its treelessness [ 97 ].…”

Octospora conidiophora (Pyronemataceae) – a new species from South Africa and the first report of anamorph in bryophilous Pezizales

“…According to the available literature and data from the main South African public fungarium (PREM), bryophilous Pezizales are completely unknown from southern Africa, despite the fact that this is a large and species-rich region, which hosts a very diverse bryoflora (Van Rooy and Phephu 2016). Our initial work revealed that this group of fungi is relatively common and probably also very diverse in southern Africa, despite the fact that the work was carried out in extraordinarily dry (and thus unsuitable) summer.…”