OPUS: SYNTHESIS OF THE MOSSES OF THE TROPICAL ANDES

Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Small organisms can play crucial roles in ecosystems. This is certainly true of mosses, which are small plants that can quickly absorb water from rainfall or fog mist, and then gradually release the water back to their environment, thus moderating water flow, preventing soil erosion, and assisting in preventing landslides and flooding down mountain slopes. Mosses are believe to play an especially vital role in the mountain forests and the alpine regions throughout the Andean ecosystems of South America. The tropical Andes represent one of the world's most species diverse regions for mosses, but is also where degradation and fragmentation of the natural landscape, coupled with rapid melting of glaciers, is having a major impact on ecosystems. Identifying and describing the diversity of species of mosses is critical in order to understand their ecological roles and ensure their conservation in the natural environment. This project will provide documentation and summary of the more than 1400 moss species for the highly diverse, Andean mountain ecosystems. Descriptive text and data based collections, accompanied by maps, photographs and illustrations will be made accessible through a project webpage to the scientific community and general public. Products include a complete taxonomic description of all Andean mosses, as well as illustrated on-line guides to these poorly studied but important organisms. Through workshops and direct collaborations, this project will strengthen scientific connections between U.S. and South American scientists and provide international research experiences to U.S. graduate and undergraduate students. Based on 30 years of fieldwork and investigations by the principal investigator, this project will provide a thorough taxonomic treatment of all families, genera, and species of Andean mosses accompanied by detailed information on their ecology, geographical distribution and observations. The project will also produce interactive identification keys to all 69 families and 345 genera generated from a character state list accompanied by corresponding illustrations. The principal investigator will complete species Illustrations previously prepared in draft form, with the objective of having two thirds of all species illustrated, and produce new illustrative plates to provide defining morphological traits of medium and large families and genera. Precise estimates of species diversity for most major groups of organisms has been elusive for the tropical Andes. This project will provide a complete account of the tropical Andean mosses, providing new knowledge on up to 500 species that are currently undescribed or undiscovered.