Bryophyte species and communities on various roofing materials, Estonia

Abstract


 
 
 Considering the recent growth of interest in using mosses in creating vegetated green roofs, we set the aim of our study to get an overview of the variety of moss and liverwort species and communities growing spontaneously on roofs. Data were collected from 67 roofs of five different types of materials: fibre cement, bitumen, stone, thatched and steel from Tallinn and rural areas on Hiiumaa Island and in South Estonia. Indicator species analysis, MRPP, cluster analysis and ordination methods (DCA, CCA) were used for data analysis. As a result of this research, generalist bryophytes occurring on all types of roofing materials were studied and bryophyte species characteristics for certain material types were identified. The thatched roofs differed most clearly from the other roof types in their species composition and had the highest species diversity. Stone and fibre cement roofs had similar species composition. The results revealed significant dependence of the composition of the bryophyte flora on roofs on the density of the bryophyte carpet formed over time on the roof and the presence of a tree canopy above the roof. Other important factors were roof relief, the height of the roof from the ground and the indicator of environmental pollution NOx. However, the studied roofs in Tallinn and rural areas did not show significant differences in the species composition of bryophytes. Five communities were delimited: (1) Syntrichia ruralis – Schistidium apocarpum; (2) Orthotrichum speciosum – Bryum argenteum; (3) Brachythecium rutabulum – Hypnum cupressiforme; (4) Ceratodon purpureus – Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus; and (5) Pleurozium schreberi – Dicranum scoparium. The mentioned communities inhabited locations that differed in environmental conditions. The findings of this research can help choose the roofing material and species suitable for a certain location in creating moss greenery on roofs.
 
 

Moss as a Multifunctional Material for Technological Greenery Systems

“…Indeed, research should be addressed to explore more suitable species to a specific regional climate (or even better, to the near future change of regional climate), but an assessment of species ranges is strictly recommended to avoid the risk of introducing a possible invasive alien plant (i.e., a moss outside its natural range and harmful to the local biodiversity). The selection of moss species is therefore a crucial way for developing technological greenery that is efficient and attractive to the market, but scientific research is currently on potential candidates 76 and few studies are directly based on comparative experiments among moss species. 77 Species selection is linked to develop and test cultivation methods on a broad-scale for moss.…”

Do plant traits influence primary succession patterns for bryophytes and vascular plants? Evidence from a 33‐year chronosequence on bare chalk

“…SLA, dispersal type, canopy height and seed mass were extracted from the LEDA database (Kleyer et al, 2008), whilst life form was extracted from Grime et al (2007) (see Table 1 for summary). The bryophyte searches did not yield useful information, although several of the returned papers used Ellenberg indicator values (e.g., Rajandu et al, 2021;Rola et al, 2021); however, these are considered to be ecological preferences rather than plant traits and we did not consider these further (Violle et al, 2007). Instead, we selected traits based on similar studies investigating succession found using alternate search terms in Google Scholar (Fernández-Martínez et al, 2019;Laine et al, 2018;Monteiro et al, 2020).…”

Biological nitrogen fixation, diversity and community structure of diazotrophs in two mosses in 25 temperate forests

“…BNF in mosses was first attributed to cyanobacteria living on the surface or intracellularly in hyaline cells of Sphagnum (Basilier, 1974). Many subsequent studies have confirmed this finding and assign the photoautotrophic cyanobacteria a prominent role in BNF in mosses also in non-peatland mosses (Carrell et al, 2019;Klarenberg et al, 2022;Rajandu et al, 2021;Renaudin et al, 2022a;van den Elzen et al, 2020). However, other studies reported that members of the phyla Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Betaproteobacteria, Eremiobacterota and Verrucomicrobiota can also contribute to BNF in mosses (Holland-Moritz et al, 2021;Vile et al, 2014).…”