Format: ORAL

Kristel van Zuijlen1,2, Irene Bisang1,2, Michael P. Nobis1, Ariel Bergamini1

1 Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland 2 Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden

Extinction risk is not randomly distributed among species but depends on species traits, their relationship to environmental factors such as climate and land use, and corresponding threats by global change. While knowledge of which factors influence extinction risk is increasingly available for some taxonomic groups, this is still largely lacking for mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Here, we used random forest models to study which biological and ecological traits and bioclimatic variables are important predictors for extinction risk in European bryophytes. We found that bioclimatic variables were the most important predictors for extinction risk, most notably precipitation and precipitation seasonality. Important biological traits were plant size, life strategy and reproductive traits while important ecological traits were continentality and elevational range of species distributions. In general, species living at climatic extremes and/or those with a narrow environmental range are more likely to be threatened with extinction. In addition, small-sized species and/or species with low sexual or asexual reproductive effort and/or larger spore size are more likely to be threatened. Our findings indicate that future climate change will be an important driver of bryophytes extinction risk, while biological and ecological traits will likely become most relevant for species in coping with future threats.