Mosses are an important part of northern ecosystems but they are challenging to identify and often get lumped into a broad "moss" functional group in ecological studies. This new paper co-authored by Inga Svala, finally proposes a useful grouping of mosses into ecologically relevant and easily distinguishable bryophyte functional groups. The groupings are based on shoot morphology and colony organization of mosses, and represent variation in the functional roles of bryophytes in tundra ecosystems.
Reference: Lett, S., Jónsdóttir, I.S., Becker-Scarpitta, A., Christiansen, C.T., During, H., Ekelund, F., Henry, G.H., Lang, S., Michelsen, A., Rousk, K., Alatalo, J., Betway, K.R., Busca, S., Callaghan, T., Carbognani, M., Cooper, E.J., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Dorrepaal, E., Egelkraut, D., Elumeeva, T.G., Haugum, S.V., Hollister, R.D., Jägerbrand, A.K., Keuper, F., Klanderud, K., Lévesque, E., Liu, X., May, J., Michel, P., Mörsdorf, M.A., Petraglia, A., Rixen, C., Robroek, B., Rzepczynska, A.M., Soudzilovskaia, N., Tolvanen, A., Vandvik, V., Volkov, I., Volkova, I., and van Zuijlen, K. (2021). Can bryophyte groups increase functional resolution in tundra ecosystems? Arctic Science https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2020-0057