Author(s):
Eldridge, David J. ; Guirado, Emilio ; Reich, Peter B. ; Ochoa-Hueso, Raúl ; Berdugo, Miguel ; Sáez-Sandino, Tadeo ; Blanco-Pastor, José L. ; Tedersoo, Leho ; Plaza, César ; Ding, Jingyi ; Sun, Wei ; Mamet, Steven ; Cui, Haiying ; He, Ji-Zheng ; Hu, Hang-Wei ; Sokoya, Blessing ; Abades, Sebastian ; Alfaro, Fernando ; Bamigboye, Adebola R. ; Bastida, Felipe ; de los Ríos, Asunción ; Durán, Jorge ; Gaitan, Juan J. ; Guerra, Carlos A. ; Grebenc, Tine ; Illán, Javier G. ; Liu, Yu-Rong ; Makhalanyane, Thulani P. ; Mallen-Cooper, Max ; Molina-Montenegro, Marco A. ; Moreno, José L. ; Nahberger, Tina U. ; Peñaloza-Bojacá, Gabriel F. ; Picó, Sergio ; Rey, Ana ; Rodríguez, Alexandra ; Siebe, Christina ; Teixido, Alberto L. ; Torres-Díaz, Cristian ; Trivedi, Pankaj ; Wang, Juntao ; Wang, Ling ; Wang, Jianyong ; Yang, Tianxue ; Zaady, Eli ; Zhou, Xiaobing ; Zhou, Xin-Quan ; Zhou, Guiyao ; Liu, Shengen ; Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel
Date: 2023
Persistent ID: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/113299
Origin: Estudo Geral - Universidade de Coimbra
Project/scholarship:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDB/PT;
Description
Soil mosses are among the most widely distributed organisms on land. Experiments and observations suggest that they contribute to terrestrial soil biodiversity and function, yet their ecological contribution to soil has never been assessed globally under natural conditions. Here we conducted the most comprehensive global standardized field study to quantify how soil mosses influence 8 ecosystem services associated with 24 soil biodiversity and functional attributes across wide environmental gradients from all continents. We found that soil mosses are associated with greater carbon sequestration, pool sizes for key nutrients and organic matter decomposition rates but a lower proportion of soil-borne plant pathogens than unvegetated soils. Mosses are especially important for supporting multiple ecosystem services where vascular-plant cover is low. Globally, soil mosses potentially support 6.43 Gt more carbon in the soil layer than do bare soils. The amount of soil carbon associated with mosses is up to six times the annual global carbon emissions from any altered land use globally. The largest positive contribution of mosses to soils occurs under a high cover of mat and turf mosses, in less-productive ecosystems and on sandy and salty soils. Our results highlight the contribution of mosses to soil life and functions and the need to conserve these important organisms to support healthy soils.
This study work associated with this manuscript was funded by a Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society (No LRB17\1019; MUSGONET). D.J.E. is supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation. M.D-B. was supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC2018-025483-I), a project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I+D+i (PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033a), and a project PAIDI 2020 from the Junta de Andalucía (P20_00879). E.G. is supported by the European Research Council grant agreement 647038 (BIODESERT). L.W. and J.W. are supported by the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011), and the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan (2013-373). The contribution of TG and TUN was supported by the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107) of the Slovenian Research Agency. The contribution of P.R. was supported by the NSF Biological Integration Institutes grant DBI441 2021898.
