Format: ORAL

Nicole J. Fenton, Nils Ambec, Manon Carboni, Enrique Rodriguez Hernandez, Deanna Holt-Schmitt, Marion Noualhaguet, Xiangbo Yin

Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda, Canada

Conservation of bryophytes across boreal North America is complicated by the large spatial scale of the landscapes, the difficulty of access of many areas, and the relatively few bryologists studying this landscape. Consequently, the detailed habitat niche of many species are not identified, and many species are described as simply boreal forest, which does not permit meaningful evaluation of the amount of habitat available for a given species, or even estimations of population sizes. Combining results from several large-scale field studies including nearly 1000 systematically sampled plots, we are able to determine patterns at different spatial scales from sites to regions that illustrate the heterogeneity of bryophyte species distribution patterns, but also of community diversity. Individual species showed clear patterns of frequency among ecosystem types and across landscapes, linked to their species traits and their ability to find the right microhabitat conditions with different combinations of macrohabitat factors. While alpha diversity within an ecosystem type varies with microsite richness as previously described, beta and gamma diversity varied across landscapes within ecosystem types, in association with topographical elements and regional gradients. Consequently, describing site, landscape and regional patterns in bryophyte communities allows us to refine the existing concept that boreal bryophyte species are inherently not rare because of the size of their potential biogeographic niche. With these results we are able to identify areas of diversity and high interest for conservation.