Let’s not forget mosses

Large mammals and exotic plants get all the attention, and conservation efforts are often directed at protecting them. Who who protects our mosses?

This often-neglected group of non-vascular lower plants called bryophytes that include mosses, liverworts and hornworts help in decomposition, regulate nutrients and have high water retention capacity.

Bryophytes are called ‘amphibians' of the plant kingdom because they are often found at the intersection of land and water. Although they are technically plants, they do not have distinct roots, stems and leaves. And although they are entirely adapted to the land by their vegetative structure, they require water for fertilisation.

There are about 960 genera and 20,000 species of bryophytes globally, with more diversity in tropical climates. In Asia, neglected as it is, India has the maximum number of bryophytes followed by China.

Nepal has about 323 genera and 1,217 species, but there has not been a comprehensive study on bryoflora even though the plants are an integral part of the mountain ecosystem and show their dominance throughout the forest floor. 

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Bryophytes often act as primary colonisers and initiate succession in terrestrial ecosystems. Their extraordinary potential of water retention is more effective than that of trees and means that the world’s 25% organic carbon is locked up in the bog moss sphagnum in living and dead forms.

Nepal’s leading bryologist Nirmala Pradhan in her seminal 2011 study noted that the Sauteria spongiosa species had disappeared from Chandragiri. Indeed, we do not have a complete updated checklist of bryophyte flora in Nepal, and do not know their ecological status. The northern slopes in the temperate forests are considered especially rich in bryophytes.

There are many endemic bryophytes found only in Nepal such as Nordia nepalensis, Entodon nepalensis, Diplophyllum trollii and Sphagnum nepalensis. Ninety-two bryophyte species from Nepal have been on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2000.

Bryophytes are threatened due to both anthropogenic deforestation and climatic causes. Unpredictable rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts, increasing temperature, changing land use, wildfires, forest fragmentation and urbanisation are all risk factors.

A visit to the Flanders Moss Nature Reserve in Scotland this year was a lesson in how bryophytes also need to be conserved, and is an internationally important habitat currently undergoing active restoration.

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The eastern part of Flanders Moss is the largest raised bog in Europe to remain in a predominantly near-natural state. The Flanders Moss Natural Reserve not only provides an important habitat for wildlife, but also plays a key role in carbon sequestration.

The bog is composed of an underlayer of sphagnum mosses, on top of which grows heather, cross-leaved heath and cotton grass. The bog is home to many species of invertebrates, especially moths. Red and roe deer are known to visit the reserve, and otters make use of the network of ditches to pass through the area. The reserve is also home to many species of reptiles and amphibians.

After being designated as a part of a special area of conservation in 2005, Flanders Moss, which also includes four other raised bogs, has become a site of scientific interest. Scottish Natural Heritage purchased rights on the site in 1995 and it is designated a Category IV protected area by the IUCN.

The British Bryological Society (BBS) is celebrating its 100 years this year. It was inaugurated in 1923 as the successor to the Moss Exchange Club formed in 1896 to accumulate specimens in private collections, many of which are now in institutional herbaria.

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The modern BBS has an entirely different focus on bryophyte conservation, recording plant distributions, supporting, and disseminating scientific research, teaching the next generations of bryologists, and spreading the message of the environmental value and significance of the bryophytes to landowners, conservation bodies and the wider public.

With its wide diversity of mosses, Nepal could also conserve its unique and endangered bryophytes, and teach school and college students about their ecological importance — especially their role as carbon sinks, water retention and ecosystem regulation.

Something else we can immediately do is explore endemic and the IUCN red-listed bryophytes in Nepal because if we do not even know they are there, we cannot protect them.

The Department of Plant Resources Ilam has initiated the conservation of an endemic moss Sphagnum nepalense at Maipokhari. We need multiple such attempts for the conservation of bryoflora in Nepal.

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Achyut Tiwari is Plant Ecologist at the Central Department of Botany at Tribhuvan University.