The forgotten species of the biodiversity crisis – focusing on the protection of mosses

Over a third of Europe’s moss species are endangered or potentially endangered. An international team of researchers has now developed a simple tool that identifies mosses in Europe that, from a global perspective, are most in need of help to survive in the long term. The tool is freely accessible and can serve as a guide for moss conservation measures across Europe.

• Mosses play an important role in many ecosystems. Nevertheless, they are often overlooked and forgotten in biodiversity conservation.
• Using a simple scoring system, an international team of researchers has now prioritised mosses according to their conservation needs.
• The openly accessible information allows every European country to make informed decisions about conservation measures for mosses, for which Europe has a major responsibility.

When we hear the terms "biodiversity crisis" and "mass extinction", charismatic animals such as tigers, rhinos and sea turtles often spring to mind. But what about the small, inconspicuous species that play an important role in our ecosystems despite their size? Do they receive the attention and protection they need?

Mosses may seem insignificant, but they form a rich and widespread group with around 20,000 species worldwide. Despite their small size, they play an important role in many ecosystems, for example by retaining moisture, serving as carbon sinks and contributing to nitrogen fixation in forests.

Yet over 30 per cent of European species are endangered or potentially endangered. Many are poorly researched and often inadequately protected.

An international team of researchers led by Irene Bisang from the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and Ariel Bergamini, moss expert at WSL, has now developed an effective and easy-to-apply method to determine which moss species in Europe should be given priority in conservation measures – and why.

The method is based on a scoring system that takes two factors into account: how threatened the species is according to the existing European Red List and how large the proportion of the European population of a species is in relation to the global population. The higher this proportion, the more important the European population is for the global conservation of the species. The researchers then used the combined scores to draw up a priority list.

The result: of the 553 species on the Red List of European mosses, 135 species are high priority, 126 medium priority and 292 low priority when it comes to conservation. Among the high-priority species are 25 that also occur in Switzerland. "Switzerland has a special responsibility to ensure that these species are preserved globally," says Bergamini.

The researchers' findings are summarised in EnviDat, the WSL's data portal for environmental data for monitoring and research projects. Here, every country in Europe can find information on the national occurrence of priority moss species. This is an important basis for making informed decisions on conservation measures for endangered mosses for which Europe has a global responsibility.

"Our goal was to provide decision-makers in European countries with tools to enable them to fulfil their national responsibility for preserving an important part of biodiversity – not only for their own country, but from a global perspective," says Bisang.

Examples of moss species that need to be protected with high priority in Europe to be preserved globally. These species also occur in Switzerland.

Data set in the EnviDat database