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A guide to bryological hotspots in Europe : [Part 2: The Rur Valley, Eifel Mountains, Germany]
(2005)
The Rur valley is situated in the extreme west of Germany in the western part of the Eifel Mountains, close to the Belgian border. The Rur valley harbours several interesting, mainly bryopyhtes. Most of the interesting species are aquatic species. Very obvious is the oceanic element, which is represented by species such as Platyhypnidium lusitanicum, Hyocomium arnoricum, and Isothecium holtii.
Leucobryum juniperoideum was found on a fieldtrip in December 2009 in North Carolina. This species was so far known from the tropics as well from Europe where it had formerly be included in L. glaucum until 1962. It is the third species of this genus in North America and differs from L. albidum and L. glaucum by a different leaf shape, a different transverse section of the costa and different shape of the capsules.
The Chocó region in Colombia is one of the wettest rainforests regions in the world. Isolated for about 3 million years, it is known for its high rate of endemism in flowering plants, ferns, birds and butterflies. Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) of this region, however, were very unsufficiently known. For this reason, a first survey of the bryoflora of the Chocó region was made in 1992 along a transect from sea level to 1800 m elevation. Apparently because of the high precipitation with up to 12 m annual rainfall, terrestrial species were found growing on bark or corticolous species on leaves. The cover of epiphytic bryophytes is higher than elsewhere, especially in the lowland forest which shows usually a low bryophyte cover. The percentage of mosses compared with that of liverworts is much lower than elsewhere. Mosses form only about 10% of the bryophyte cover in contrast to 40-50% in the according elevation in other rain forest regions.
Thalloid liverworts with unistratose thallus margins are easily determined as Aneura maxima, which shall be identified by this character. However, forms of Pellia epiphylla and P. endiviifolia grown under humid conditions can have an unistratose undulate thallus margin and thus confused with the latter. Pellia species can, however, be distinguished from Aneura by the presence of slime hairs vz. slime papillae, which are described and illustrated here.
Hot spots are characterized by the occurrence of „hot“ species, rare, endangered, phytogeographically (for example highly disjunct) or ecologically interesting species (for example heavy metal species). The Apuanian Alps (ital. Alpi Apuani) are a place of extraordinary botanical and also bryological interest. Although situated far from the west coast of Europe, many atlantic species are found there, which have isolated occurrences and show up next in Asturias, Macaronesia. Ireland or Scotland. Representative of the oceanic element in the bryoflora are Dumortiera hirsuta, Lejeunea lamacerina, Lophocolea fragrans, Plagiochila exigua, P. bifaria, Saccogyna viticulosa, Harpalejeunea ovata and Marchesinia mackaii, supplemented by ferns such as Trichomanes speciosum and Hymenophyllum tunbrigense (Cortini-Pedrotti et al. 1992). Reasons for the presence of such species in Italy are the extraordinary climatic conditions. Situated directly along the Meditrerranean Sea, the climate is mild and due to depressions in the gulf of Genova, the rain is caught by the mountains resulting in a high precipitation of about 1400 at the foot of the region and more than 3000 mm in the summit region. This does, however, not explain whether these species are relics from the Tertiary or dispersed from the W-coast of Europe after the Pleistocene glaciations.
The location of Ticino in the southern Alps with an altitudinal range from 200 to more than 3000 m generates a high biodiversity of bryophytes, however, in addition, a mixture of mediterranean elements (caused by mild temperatures), atlantic elements (caused by high precipitation) and especially insubrian elements (confined to the Southern Alps) has attracted many famous bryologists over the past 150 years and make this region to a real bryological hot spot. Six of the 7 insubrian species are mainly distributed in North America. Their presence in the Southern Alps is correlated with a certain geological formation and their origin is not clear.
Madeira is bryologically insofar very interesting, as it harbours (like the other Macaronesian Islands) relics of the bryoflora of the Tertiary of continental Europe. Originated in the Tertiary at various times, these volcanic islands were mainly colonized from Europe. Whereas many species got extinct in Europe during the glaciations of the Quaternary, these elements were able to survive in these islands. So we are faced there with an ancient bryoflora, especially in the laurel forests, amongst other phytogeographic elements, mainly mediterranean species.
Dicranodontium didymodon, a species described from the Himalaya was recently reported from Spain. It has been distinguished from D. denudatum by a smooth subula. A reexamination of the type of this species revealed no additional characters which would support the recognition of a separate species. Therefore D. didymodon is synonymised with D. denudatum. The specimen from Spain is referred to D. denudatum var. glabrum, which differs from D. didymodon by larger stature and lack of brood leaves.
The Azores are of bryological interest in many respects: They are young volcanic islands with an age between 4 mio and 40.000 years, are situated in an hyperoceanic environment favouring bryophyte growth, the bryophyte flora is composed of European, Neotropical, African and subantarctic elements, there are about as many bryophyte species as flowering plants, the islands have a comparably high rate of endemic species (on single Azorean islands, all Azorean islands or the Macaronesian islands), and the bryophyte flora gives an impression of the bryophyte flora of continental Europe during Tertiary, since many species such as Echinodium spp. or Andoa berthelotiana, known as fossils from the Tertiary of continental Europe, survived here the glaciation periods and got extinct in Europe.