Climatic Responses and Limits of Bryophytes: Comparisons and Contrasts with Vascular Plants

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511779701.004

3 - Climatic Responses and Limits of Bryophytes: Comparisons and Contrasts with Vascular Plants

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2012

Michael C. F. Proctor

Edited by

Zoltán Tuba ,

Nancy G. Slack and

Lloyd R. Stark

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Michael C. F. Proctor: Affiliation:
University of Exeter, UK
Nancy G. Slack: Affiliation:
Sage Colleges, New York
Lloyd R. Stark: Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Summary

Introduction

Bryophytes and flowering plants are very different in their strategies of adaptation to life on land. These differences are reflected in their responses to climate and their ecological and geographical distribution patterns. The difference is immediately obvious in any region for which both the vascular plant and the bryophyte flora are well known and well mapped. Britain and Ireland are good examples (Hill et al. 1991, 1992, 1994; Preston & Hill 1997; Hill & Preston 1998; Preston et al. 2002). Only around 10% of the vascular plants of Europe occur in the British Isles, and within Britain and Ireland the number of vascular plant species tends to decline from southeast to northwest. With bryophytes the trend is almost reversed. Britain and Ireland have one of the richest bryophyte floras of any comparably sized region of Europe (and a rich bryoflora even by world standards), and bryophyte diversity is heavily concentrated in upland regions and towards the west coast.

Strategies of adaptation to life on land

A planktonic green cell floating near the surface of a lake or the sea has all the necessities of life around it. It is surrounded on all sides by water, from which it can take up nutrients and exchange gases. Light is not a problem either, provided the cell does not sink too far below the surface of the water.

Type: Chapter
Information: Bryophyte Ecology and Climate Change , pp. 35 - 54

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511779701.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

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