OOS 47: New Frontiers in Bryophyte Ecology

Session Organizer(s)

• Mandy Slate

  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado
  Boulder, CO, USA

Moderator(s)

• Mandy Slate

  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado
  Boulder, CO, USA

Bryophytes represent nearly half a billion years of adaptation to life on land, and shape the ecology of terrestrial systems from the poles to equatorial regions. This incredibly diverse group of plants influences productivity, biogeochemistry, and functional ecology of ecosystems, but is often overlooked and understudied. Here we bring together some of the most recent and thought provoking research on bryophyte ecology. This session will highlight how bryophytes serve as “Vital Connections in Ecology” with research spanning taxonomic groups (mosses, liverworts), ecosystems (forests, arid grasslands), and a wide range of bryophyte-mediated interactions (above and below-ground, across trophic levels, and at various spatial scales).

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  Avian-bryophyte interaction networks: Insights from an ornithological approach to bryophyte ecology
  

  Presenting Author: Matthew W. Chmielewski – Department of Biology and Center for Life in Extreme Environments, Portland State University
• ON DEMAND

  Desiccation tolerance in dryland mosses: influences of micro- and macro-climate on carbon balance and feedbacks to biocrust communities
  

  Presenting Author: Kirsten K. Coe – Biology, Middlebury College
• ON DEMAND

  Fluctuating sexual dimorphisms in an eco-physiological trait across environmental gradients in non-vascular plants
  

  Presenting Author: D Nicholas McLetchie – Department of Biology, University of Kentucky
• ON DEMAND

  Hyperspectral indices of Sphagnum moss water content and photosynthetic capacity reflect CO2 and CH4 exchange in a northern peatland ecosystem
  

  Presenting Author: Colin Tucker – Northern Research Station, US Forest Service
• ON DEMAND

  Natural selection on a carbon cycling trait drives ecosystem engineering by Sphagnum peat mosses
  

  Presenting Author: Bryan T. Piatkowski – Biology, Duke University
• ON DEMAND

  Syntrichia caninervis morphological plasticity in response to climate disturbances
  

  Presenting Author: Cristina Rengifo-Faiffer – School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University