Mosses are one of the most important and dominant plant communities, especially in the temperate biome, and play a significant role in ecosystem function and dynamics. They influence the water, energy and element cycle due to their unique ecology and physiology. The present study was undertaken in three different temperate forest sites in the Garhwal Himalayas, viz., Triyuginarayan (Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (KWLS)), Chakrata, and Kanasar forest range. The study was focused on understanding the influence of mosses on soil physical properties and nutrient availability. Different physico-chemical properties were analysed under two different substrata, that is, with and without moss cover in two different seasons, viz., monsoon and winter. We observed mosses to influence and alter the physical properties and nutrient status of soil in both seasons. All soil physical and chemical properties, except magnesium, showed significant difference within the substrates, among all the sites and across the two seasons. Besides the soil characteristics underneath the moss vegetation, the study also highlights the diversity of mosses found in the area. Mosses appear to create high nutrient microsites via a high rate of organic matter accumulation and retain nutrients for longer periods thus, maintaining ecosystem stability.

In Antarctica, the genus Bartramia has been restricted to a single polymorphic species, B. patens. Its status as a separate species or a subspecies of the Northern Hemisphere B. ithyphylla was debated. In the present paper, we combine analyses of chloroplast (trnS–rps4–trnT–trnL–trnF region) and nuclear ITS sequences with a reinvestigation of morphological characteristics to infer the identity of Antarctic Bartramia. Phylogenetic and Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) species delimitation analyses indicate that the species diversity of Bartramia in Antarctica has been underestimated, since two species were identified, both belonging to Bartramia sect. Pyridium. Of these, B. subsymmetrica is a new record of the species for Antarctica, as it has previously only been recorded from Livingston Island, South Shetlands. The other species is B. patens, which is separated from B. ithyphylla by newly inferred morphological characteristics and is a sister species to the latter in the molecular phylogenetic analyses. Consequently, we consider B. ithyphylla to be a Northern Hemisphere instead of a bipolar species. The suggested conspecificity of both taxa into one species in the ABGD analysis is considered to result from overlumping by this species delimitation method. The delimitation of the three species of section Bartramia (B. halleriana, B. mossmaniana and B. pomiformis) and the circumscription of the genus Bartramia are discussed.

Bryophytes (including mosses, liverworts and hornworts) are a heterogeneous group of terrestrial plants, which comprise over 24,000 species worldwide. Given the various biological activities reported from bryophytes, they have a huge commercial potential. Due to their minute size and rather small biomass in various ecosystems, bryophytes are a seldom part of ethnomedicine and rarely subject to medicinal and chemical analyses. Still, hundreds of novel natural products have been isolated from bryophytes. Bryophytes have been shown to contain numerous potentially useful natural products, including polysaccharides, lipids, rare amino acids, terpenoids, phenylpropanoids, quinones and many other specialized metabolites. Additionally, different bryophyte extracts and isolated compounds have shown antimicrobial, antiviral, cytotoxic, nematocidal, insecticidal, effects on smooth and non-striated muscles, weight loss, plant growth regulators and allelopathic activities. Bryophytes also cause allergies and contact dermatitis. All these effects highlight bryophytes as potential source for herbal remedies and production of chemicals to be used in various products.

Fossil tree resins preserve a wide range of animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms in microscopic fidelity. Fossil organisms preserved in an individual piece of amber lived at the same time in Earth history and mostly even in the same habitat, but they were not necessarily parts of the same interacting community. Here, we report on an in situ preserved corticolous community from a piece of Miocene Dominican amber which is composed of a lichen, a moss and three species of leafy liverworts. The lichen is assigned to the extant genus Phyllopsora (Ramalinaceae, Lecanoromycetes) and is described as P.magna Kaasalainen, Rikkinen & A. R. Schmidt sp. nov. The moss, Aptychellites fossilis Schäf.-Verw., Hedenäs, Ignatov & Heinrichs gen. & sp. nov., closely resembles the extant genus Aptychella of the family Pylaisiadelphaceae. The three leafy liverworts comprise the extinct Lejeuneaceae species Cheilolejeunea antiqua (Grolle) Ye & Zhu, 2010 and Lejeunea miocenica Heinrichs, Schäf.-Verw., M. A. M. Renner & G. E. Lee sp. nov. and the extinct Radulaceae species Radula intecta M. A. M. Renner, Schäf.-Verw. & Heinrichs sp. nov. The presence of five associated extinct cryptogam species, four of which belong to extant genera, further substantiates the notion of a stasis in morphotype diversity, but a certain turnover of species, in the Caribbean since the early Miocene.

Biological soil crusts are associations of lichens, mosses, algae, cyanobacteria, microfungi and bacteria in different proportions forming a thin veneer within the top centimetres of soil surfaces. They occur in all biomes, but particularly in arid and semi-arid regions, even in the most extreme climates. They carry out crucial ecosystem functions, such as soil stabilization, influencing water and nutrient cycles, and contribute to the formation of microniches for heterotrophic life. In continental Antarctica especially, these roles are essential because no higher plants provide such ecosystem services. We provide a detailed description of biological soil crusts from Garwood Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys region (78°S) and Diamond Hill (80°S) in the Darwin Mountains region. The coverage was low at 3.3% and 0.8% of the soil surface. At Garwood Valley the crusts were composed of green algal lichens, cyanobacteria, several species of green algae and the moss Hennediella heimii (Hedw.) R.H. Zander. Diamond Hill crusts appear to be unique in not having any species of cyanobacteria. Major parts are embedded in the soil, and their thickness correlates with higher chlorophyll contents, higher soil organic carbon and nitrogen, which are fundamental components of this species poor cold desert zone.

A new species of Neckeraceae, Neckera serrulatifolia Enroth & M.Ji, is described from Xizang (Tibet), China. It belongs in an Asian group of relatively robust, distinctly stipitate species with an obtuse leaf apex, relatively long costa and strongly incrassate-porose leaf cell walls, but differs from the other species by the combination of strongly complanate and undulate branch leaves, long leaf decurrencies, and serrulate margins at leaf base and at midleaf. The sporophytes remain unknown.

Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands is one of the most volcanically active sites south of 60°S. Between 1967 and 1970 three major eruptions devastated large expanses of the landscape and its vegetation. Since 1970 extensive recolonization has occurred on the more stable surfaces. Unheated ground supports several bryophyte and lichen communities typical of much of the Maritime Antarctic, but geothermal habitats possess remarkable associations of bryophytes, many of which are unknown or very rare elsewhere in the Antarctic. Nine geothermal sites and their vegetation are described. Communities associated with more transient sites have disappeared when the geothermal activity ceased. Mosses and liverworts occur to within a few centimetres of the vents where temperatures reach 90–95°C, while temperatures within adjacent moss turf can reach 35–50°C or more and remain consistently between 25 and 45°C. Most of the bryoflora has a Patagonian–Fuegian provenance. It is presumed that, unlike most species, the thermophiles are not pre-adapted to the Antarctic environment, being able to colonize only where the warm and humid conditions prevail. The floristic and ecological importance of these thermophilic communities, and their sensitivity to perturbation by the rapidly increasing annual summer influx of tourists, as well as scientists, has resulted in these unique sites being proposed as components of a new Antarctic Specially Protected Area under the Antarctic Treaty.

The lichen and moss collections by G.T. Bowra in Heimefrontfjella in 1963–64 are redetermined. These are the only plant collections made in Heimefrontfjella prior to a Swedish expedition in 1991–92. Taxonomical and nomenclatural improvements have resulted in several changes. A total of 16 lichens and two mosses were found.

Macromolecular substances that cause pitting and other modifications of growing ice crystals were found to be associated with cyanobacterial mats, eukaryotic algae and mosses from Ross Island and the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Ice-pitting activities were largely retained by dialysis membranes with molecular weight cut-offs of up to 300 kDa. Unlike most aqueous solutes, the ice-active molecules were not excluded from the ice phase during freezing. The ice-pitting activities of each of the samples tested was destroyed by exposure to temperatures between 45 and 65°C, suggesting that they have a protein component. Ice-active substances were not found in cyanobacteria or mosses from temperate climates, but ice-activity was found to be associated with mosses from cold habitats in North America. Although the function of the ice-active substances is not known, their apparent confinement to cold environments suggests that they have a cryoprotective role.