A review of ∼290 research articles on bryophyte desiccation tolerance (DT) over the last century reveals four prominent methods that incorporate equilibrium drying. We compare these methods (called Conventional, Wetted substrate, Step-down and Partial drying) in terms of inducing the trait DT in four species of mosses occupying distinctly different evolutionary clades and known to exhibit an inducible strategy of DT (Phascum cuspidatum, Funaria hygrometrica, Bryum argenteum and Syntrichia obtusissima). Conventional=plants placed directly at 33% RH; Wetted substrate=plants dried at different rates (times) to 33% RH by wetting the substrate; Step-down=plants dried to equilibration in sequence from 100, 75, 54, then 33% RH; Partial drying=plants exposed to 100% RH prior to placement at 33% RH. Efficacy of each method was evaluated using postrehydration damage and recovery as assessed from chlorophyll fluorescence and leaf or tissue damage 7 days postrehydration. For each chlorophyll fluorescence measure, there was a significant three-way interaction between species, drying method and time. Three of the four methods produced good recovery after 24 h of rehydration, with the plants subjected to the Conventional method not recovering from desiccation. Photosynthetic damage immediately upon rehydration was reduced for the Partial dry method and similar for the Step-down and Wetted substrate methods. Tissue damage 7 d postrehydration was equivalent for the Wetted substrate, Step-down and Partial dry methods, and most plants died following the Conventional method of drying. Recovery following 24 h of rehydration was near control levels for all methods but the Conventional. Species differences were considerable among drying methods. The Subturgor Hypothesis is advanced to explain degree of induction of desiccation tolerance, and was generally supported, with the caveat that, among the three most successful methods tested, the Step-down method performed better than expected based upon time at subturgor.

A low rate of establishment in brown mosses is generally observed following large-scale restoration of fens. As brown mosses are important components in peat accumulation in fens, their low recovery rate has been a concern in the past decade. It was suggested that the restoration method used for bogs, the Moss Layer Transfer Technique (MLTT) should be adapted for fen restoration by identifying factors limiting the establishment and recovery of brown mosses. In this study, we evaluated the regeneration potential of four common brown mosses, Aulacomnium palustre, Campylium stellatum, Scorpidium cossonii and Tomentypnum nitens, according to three factors that can have an impact during restoration: 1) distance of the fragment below the moss apex, 2) mechanical fragmentation of mosses, and 3) enhanced nutrient availability, and this, in growth chambers (within Petri dishes) and field experiments. Under controlled conditions, similar results were obtained for all four brown mosses studied: the severe fragmentation of mosses most drastically improved their regeneration potential. Phosphate fertilization, even at the lowest dose, increased moss regeneration, and brown mosses showed higher recovery in the first 3 cm below the apex. Liming only improved the regeneration of C. stellatum. However, unclear, and even contradicting results were obtained when treatments were applied in the field, where an overall very low establishment of brown mosses was observed in response to the rather prevailing adverse environmental conditions (e.g., erosion, frost heaving, low water table level). The direct application of some of our results into an adapted version of MLTT might be challenging, as it may require a certain level of meticulosity that large-scale mechanical fen restoration cannot provide.

Phaeocalicium atenitikon is described new to science, growing on twigs of Juglans nigra (black walnut) in central North America. The species is characterized by small ascomata; an exciple of brown, periclinally arranged hyphae; notably small, pigmented, two-celled ascospores with pale septa; and its substrate and distribution. These are the first records of a corticolous Phaeocalicium from intermountain North America south of the Great Lakes region. Differences among similar species are discussed, and a worldwide key is provided for members of the genus with persistently 1-septate ascospores.

Environmental factors in saxicolous lichen communities are scale dependent, yet the influence of scale is not often specifically addressed in ecological studies. This study examined three scales [micro (cm), meso (meters–10s of meters), macro (km)] in granite rock communities and compared species assemblages and disturbance regimes in Lake Superior shoreline and inland habitats. Percent cover of lichens and environmental variables were measured in 1280 20 × 20-cm plots across 16 sites (8 lakeshore and 8 inland). A perMANOVA analysis showed that the composition of lakeshore and inland lichen communities was significantly different (F=17.2, df=1,4, P <0.001). Adjacent lakeshore sites were more similar (F=8.550; df = 1, 26; p=0.007) to each other than they were to sites further away, while inland sites were not (F=0.545; df=1, 26; p=0.467). Variation in disturbance is likely more important in determining inter-site variation in inland areas. Mesoscale environmental variables such as solar radiation, height above Lake Superior, and an aspect/slope index were better predictors of species assemblages than microscale variables. However, individual species differed greatly in their associations with specific habitat variables. A host of microhabitats were discovered, with some lichens specializing on rock overhangs, quartz veins, cracks, subtle variations in rock texture, and mafic intrusions within granite.

Japanese gardens emphasize on the aesthetic value of bryophytes, a major ground cover in moss gardens. Using medieval and early modern documents, this study analyzed the evolution of moss gardens and their aesthetic value by elucidating how moss usage changed over time. Twenty documents written from the 11th to the 19th centuries were surveyed. According to these documents, mosses were used as supplemental ground cover around the 11th century. After the 15th century, mosses were intentionally selected and planted in Zen gardens (gardens established at Zen temples) and Roji (gardens attached to tea ceremony rooms). Zen gardens provide monks with a feeling of being deep in the mountains. Roji particularly emphasizes Wabi-Sabi aesthetics, which embrace the opposite of conventional beauty, such as aging processes and tranquility. These concepts in Zen and Roji gardens are associated with bryophyte-covered landscapes. This is because these landscapes suggest a mountain-like ambiance, the passage of time, and tranquility in Japan. These associations suggest that the importance of bryophyte cover in gardens might have increased with the development of Zen and Roji gardens—specifically, mosses came to be used as major ground cover after the establishment of Roji. Moreover, given that Zen Buddhism underlies the establishment of Wabi-Sabi aesthetics, it might have been the impetus for the development of moss gardens.

We used data on epiphytic lichen communities in 1215, 0.4-ha plots in the Southwest U.S.A. collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program to analyze relationships with climate. We sought the climate variables most strongly associated with differences in epiphytic macrolichen communities and described the nature of those relationships, including diversity, community composition, and patterns in individual species. Five lichen community groups were strongly related to temperature and elevation gradients, overall moisture, and summer rain. Lichen abundance was highest in the wettest groups and lowest in the hottest and driest groups. Warm summer monsoonal climates supported the greatest number of species across all plots and within plots. The monsoonal pattern did not occupy a discrete geographic area, but instead formed a gradient, strongest in the southern part of our study area, diminishing to the north and west. In contrast, hot summer monsoonal climates had much lower within-plot richness. Hot, dry climates had the most variation in species composition among plots, but the fewest species within each plot and across all plots. Lichen community gradients had nonlinear relationships with combinations of climate variables rather than strong linear relationships with any single variable, including those derivative climate variables meant to have direct biological relevance. Relationships between air quality and community gradients were weak, potentially overwhelmed by regional climatic variation and complex topographic gradients. Richness of particular functional groups was more strongly related to climate than was overall species richness; functional groups have their own climatic tolerances, owing to the physiological consequences of growth form and photobiont. Presumably species in different functional groups have experienced their own evolutionary tradeoffs, developing peak performance in different climates. On the other hand, overall richness was driven by an even more complex combination of performances relative to climate and was in some functional groups more strongly related to geographic coordinates than to climate variables. Because climatic variables are themselves geographically structured, stronger model fit for geographic coordinates than for climate implies some influence of large-scale historical factors (i.e., factors not clearly expressed in modern climates, such as past climates, vegetation structure, or disturbance regimes).

Sarcogyne similis is found to produce psoromic acid, a substance previously known from only one other species in the family Acarosporaceae. Study of more than one hundred specimens from throughout the range of S. similis confirms the species is widely distributed from Nova Scotia, Canada, south throughout much of the eastern United States, and westward through the Sonoran Desert to southern California, where it occurs on non-calcareous rocks, especially sandstone. The recently proposed synonymy with S. reebiae is confirmed. Sarcogyne similis f. convexa is lectotypified with material that contains psoromic acid. The type of S. californica, currently treated as a synonym of S. similis, does not produce psoromic acid and may belong to a separate taxon. The distribution of S. dakotensis, which produces norstictic acid, appears to be nearly allopatric with S. similis.

Incongruence among morphological and different molecular data sets can be troublesome for species and genus circumscriptions and may cause problems in interpreting intraspecific relationships. Based on the nuclear ITS1 and 2, and the plastid rpl16, trnG and trnL-trnF, it is shown that while such incongruence is not detected if the individual species Loeskypnum badium, Sarmentypnum exannulatum or Warnstorfia fluitans are studied, it may be striking when analyzed in a wider context within the Calliergonaceae. The wider context did not affect the interpretation of internal relationships within L. badium, but many specimens of the other two species were suggested to belong to different species by either marker set. For a large minority of S. exannulatum (8% of specimens), ITS suggested W. fluitans and for 28% of W. fluitans the plastid markers suggested S. exannulatum or (one case) S. sarmentosum. The found pattern agrees with a scenario where archegonia of female plants of S. exannulatum or S. sarmentosum were fertilized by W. fluitans spermatozoids. The produced spores all have the maternally inherited Sarmentypnum plastids, but nuclear genome portions from either the involved Sarmentypnum species or W. fluitans. If foreign plastids affect the functionality of plants less than foreign nuclear portions in plants with mixed genomes, morphological W. fluitans plants with Sarmentypnum plastids should survive to a higher degree than vice versa.

A long and steep elevational gradient presents the opportunity to study the niches of a large number of species within a small geographic area. Along such a gradient in the Sierra Nevada of California, all bryophytes were recorded in 253 plots. Along with species occurrence, the wetness, incline, shadiness and substrate type of the spot where each bryophyte was living were recorded. The average of these ecological traits (i.e., the central tendency of the species niche) was tabulated along with a determination of whether the species was a specialist or generalist for that niche dimension. Moving to guilds, co-occurrence in plots was used to aggregate species into ecological coalitions using the program RCLUS. These coalitions occupy different parts of an ordination of species, but they reveal more subtlety than the ordination itself. An ecotone was evident between the foothill bryophyte vegetation zone and a higher elevation zone. Other ecotones were not obvious; for example, we did not detect a sharp boundary between a conifer zone and a subalpine zone, rather the turnover of species was incremental and individualistic. For naturalists who know the species, being able to characterize them ecologically contributes to thoughts of the assembly of communities and the conservatism of clades.

The Japanese Marchantia taxa belonging to sect. Papillatae of subg. Chlamidium have been taxonomically ambiguous for a long time because many species and infraspecific taxa have been described based on their broad morphological variation. In order to resolve this taxonomic problem, nearly 200 specimens including type material of names placed in the section were morphologically examined. Among them, 45 specimens collected during our recent field work in Japan were newly sequenced for phylogenetic analysis. The molecular analysis showed that Japanese plants belonging to sect. Papillatae should be partitioned into two distinct clades. The plants belonging to the two clades were distinguishable by the presence or absence of a dark median band on the thallus and the morphology of the appendage of ventral scales and gametangiophores. Geographic distribution and ecological habitats in Japan also support the partitioning into two distinct clades. We propose the new combination M. emarginata subsp. cuneiloba (≡ M. cuneiloba). We also suggest that M. emarginata subsp. cuneiloba and M. papillata subsp. grossibarba are the appropriate names for the plants belonging to each clade. The species previously described from Japan (e.g., M. radiata Horik., M. tosana Steph. and M. tosayamensis Steph.) were synonymized for both of them.

Sciaromiopsis comprises a single species, S. sinensis, endemic to China. The genus is currently placed in the Amblystegiaceae, solely on the basis of gametophytic characters since its sporophytes are unknown. As a semiaquatic plant, the character of a strong leaf costa and marginal borders can aid S. sinensis to adapt drought as while as aquatic conditions. In this study, the phylogenetic position of Sciaromiopsis was revisited based on morphological and molecular phylogentic evidences of three datasets, the plastid rps4 dataset with 346 mosses species, the ITS dataset with 104 moss species and 82 plastid protein-coding gene dataset with 32 moss species. According to the morphological characters of gametophyte, the stable pattern of pseudoparaphyllia, leaf cells smooth and single costa of Sciaromiopsis are consistent with key characteristics of the Brachytheciaceae, the ovate-lanceolate leaves, differentiated alar cells and rhomboidal median leaf cells are consistent with key characteristics of the Brachythecium. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of both datasets of the rps4 gene and the 82 plastid protein-coding genes clearly indicated that Sciaromiopsis is a member of Brachytheciaceae. Sciaromiopsis sinensis is either clustered in a well supported clade among species of Brachythecium, Koponeniella and Myuroclada in the rps4 tree, or strongly supported as the sister to Brachythecium rivulare in plastid 82 gene tree. Maximum likelihood analysis of the nuclear ITS locus suggested that S. sinensis is nested within Brachythecium with moderate support. Thus, S. sinensis should be considered as a member of the Brachythecium, the diagnostic character of its leaf margin bordered by 5–8 rows of linear cells making it an easy distinction from other species of Brachythecium.

Leptogium bacatum is described as a new species with spherical-celled (moniliform) hairs and Leptogium umpquaense has matted, tangled hairs on the upper surface. Both are in the so-called section Mallotium. The species differ in morphology and DNA sequences from others in this group. We supplement existing GenBank data with new ITS and nuLSU sequences for 12 Leptogium specimens from Arizona, California, Mexico, New Mexico, Oregon, Nova Scotia and Ontario. Leptogium bacatum is distinguished by a medium-sized thallus, lobes to 6 mm wide, with long, distinct longitudinal wrinkles so that lobes look stretched, a lower surface covered with short (to 40 µm), fine, spherical-celled tomentum, numerous laminal and marginal lobules and granular to cylindrical isidia. The known range is northern California and New Mexico. Leptogium umpquaense has matted, tangled white hairs on the upper and lower surfaces and produces prolific coralloid to flattened isidia in dense groups along the margins, giving the thallus the look of a cauliflower. We provide a key to the Leptogium species known from western North America.

We evaluated the taxonomic status of specimens representing two listed rare species of Pannaria in the Pacific Northwest, P. rubiginosa and P. rubiginella, based on DNA sequences of recently collected samples. We combined those data with new sequences for other Pannaria species in North America and South America as well as all available sequences from the P. rubiginosa and P. lurida groups plus closely related P. hookeri, based on results from initial analyses. Historically, P. rubiginosa and P. rubiginella have been separated in the Pacific Northwest based on the paraphenylenediamine (P) reaction of the cortex versus the medulla. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on ITS sequences demonstrated that both chemotypes belong to a single well-supported clade, and that it belongs to neither P. rubiginosa nor P. rubiginella. Instead, the Pacific Northwest material appears to belong to an undescribed species very similar morphologically to P. rubiginosa, but genetically and geographically distinct from that species and with smaller spores. We describe this new species as Pannaria oregonensis, assigning all of the material from the Pacific Northwest to this taxon, regardless of the location of the P+ reaction. This conclusion is supported by phylogenetic analysis of co-occurring populations of different chemotypes. We recommend removing P. rubiginella from the North American checklist. We also provide a revised key to the North American species of Pannaria, based on our current understanding. Furthermore, based on new sampling of Pannaria species from North and South America, we show a need for revision of the isidiate species of Pannaria, in particular P. tavaresii in the broad sense.