Up in the tree--the overlooked richness of bryophytes and lichens in tree crowns

PloS One
Steffen BochMarkus Fischer

Abstract

Assessing diversity is among the major tasks in ecology and conservation science. In ecological and conservation studies, epiphytic cryptogams are usually sampled up to accessible heights in forests. Thus, their diversity, especially of canopy specialists, likely is underestimated. If the proportion of those species differs among forest types, plot-based diversity assessments are biased and may result in misleading conservation recommendations. We sampled bryophytes and lichens in 30 forest plots of 20 m × 20 m in three German regions, considering all substrates, and including epiphytic litter fall. First, the sampling of epiphytic species was restricted to the lower 2 m of trees and shrubs. Then, on one representative tree per plot, we additionally recorded epiphytic species in the crown, using tree climbing techniques. Per tree, on average 54% of lichen and 20% of bryophyte species were overlooked if the crown was not been included. After sampling all substrates per plot, including the bark of all shrubs and trees, still 38% of the lichen and 4% of the bryophyte species were overlooked if the tree crown of the sampled tree was not included. The number of overlooked lichen species varied strongly among regions. Furthermore, th...Continue Reading

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Citations

Sep 28, 2014·Environmental Monitoring and Assessment·Vítězslav PlášekKatarzyna Kochanowska
Aug 21, 2018·Mycology·Trichur S Suryanarayanan, Nagamani Thirunavukkarasu
Feb 17, 2017·Environmental Management·Dariusz Kubiak, Piotr Osyczka

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