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Direct and Indirect Drivers of Moss Community Structure, Function, and Associated Microfauna Across a Successional Gradient

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Abstract

Relative to vascular plants, little is known about what factors control bryophyte communities or how they respond to successional and environmental changes. Bryophytes are abundant in boreal forests, thus changes in moss community composition and functional traits (for example, moisture and nutrient content; rates of photosynthesis and respiration) may have important consequences for ecosystem processes and microfaunal communities. Through synthesis of previous work and new analyses integrating new and published data from a long-term successional gradient in the boreal forest of northern Sweden, we provide a comprehensive view of the biotic factors (for example, vascular plant productivity, species composition, and diversity) and abiotic factors (for example, soil fertility and light transmission) that impact the moss community. Our results show that different aspects of the moss community (that is, composition, functional traits, moss-driven processes, and associated invertebrate fauna) respond to different sets of environmental variables, and that these are not always the same variables as those that influence the vascular plant community. Measures of moss community composition and functional traits were primarily influenced by vascular plant community composition and productivity. This suggests that successional shifts in abiotic variables, such as soil nutrient levels, indirectly affect the moss community via their influence on vascular plant community characteristics, whereas direct abiotic effects are less important. Among the moss-driven processes, moss litter decomposition and moss productivity were mainly influenced by biotic variables (notably the community characteristics of both vascular plants and mosses), whereas moss functional traits (primarily specific leaf area and tissue nutrient concentrations) also were important in explaining moss di-nitrogen-fixation rates. In contrast, both abiotic and biotic variables were important drivers of moss microfaunal community structure. Taken together, our results show which abiotic and biotic factors impact mosses and their associated organisms, and thus highlight that multiple interacting factors need to be considered to understand how moss communities, associated food webs, and the ecosystem processes they influence will respond to environmental change.

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Acknowledgments

We thank a great number of field assistants—too many to list here—that over the years have helped out on the islands. Financial support was provided by the Swedish Research Councils Formas (MJ, PK, MCN), Vetenskapsrådet (DAW, MJ), and a Wallenberg Scholars award (DAW).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, 90187, Umeå, Sweden

    Micael Jonsson

  2. Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 90183, Umeå, Sweden

    Paul Kardol, Michael J. Gundale, Sheel Bansal, Marie-Charlotte Nilsson, Daniel B. Metcalfe & David A. Wardle

  3. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Olympia Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 3625 93rd Avenue SW, Olympia, Washington, 98512, USA

    Sheel Bansal

  4. Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, 22362, Lund, Sweden

    Daniel B. Metcalfe

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  1. Micael Jonsson
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  2. Paul Kardol
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  3. Michael J. Gundale
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  4. Sheel Bansal
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  5. Marie-Charlotte Nilsson
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  6. Daniel B. Metcalfe
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  7. David A. Wardle
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Correspondence to Micael Jonsson.

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Author contributions

All authors conceived and designed the study. Each author collected one part, or several parts, of the data, of which moss decomposition (Micael Jonsson) and microfauna (Paul Kardol) were not previously published. Micael Jonsson performed all statistical analyses and led the writing of the manuscript. All authors took part in the writing.

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Jonsson, M., Kardol, P., Gundale, M.J. et al. Direct and Indirect Drivers of Moss Community Structure, Function, and Associated Microfauna Across a Successional Gradient. Ecosystems 18, 154–169 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9819-8

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