Number of Genera as a Potential Screening Tool for Assessing Quality of Bryophyte Communities in Ohio Wetlands

Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) have numerous advantages as indicators of environmental quality. A quality assessment index for bryophyte species assemblages (BQAI) was developed for the State of Ohio, USA. Reliable identification of bryophytes to species often requires considerable t...

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Published inWetlands (Wilmington, N.C.) Vol. 36; no. 4; pp. 771 - 778
Main Authors Schumacher, William, Stapanian, Martin A., Andreas, Barbara K., Gara, Brian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2016
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Aquatic plants
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Bryophyta
Bryophytes
Coastal Sciences
Ecology
Environmental indicators
Environmental Management
Environmental quality
Flowers & plants
Forested wetlands
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Hydrogeology
Landscape Ecology
Life Sciences
Marchantiophyta
Mosses
Native species
Quality assessment
Quality control
Short Communication
Taxonomy
Training
Vegetation
Wetlands
United States > US
Ohio
USA, Ohio
Number of genera
Bryophytes
Quality assessment index
Wetlands
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Summary:Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) have numerous advantages as indicators of environmental quality. A quality assessment index for bryophyte species assemblages (BQAI) was developed for the State of Ohio, USA. Reliable identification of bryophytes to species often requires considerable training, practice, and time. In contrast, reliable identification to genera for most bryophytes in Ohio requires much less training. We identified 110 bryophyte species (14 liverworts and 96 mosses) belonging to 69 genera (13 liverwort and 56 moss) in 45 wetlands (27 emergent, 13 forested, and 5 shrub) in Ohio. As expected, there were more genera and higher BQAI scores in forested than in emergent wetlands. Number of genera was highly correlated ( r  ≥ 0.9) with BQAI in emergent and forested wetlands and for the combined set of wetlands. Number of genera and BQAI responded almost identically to an index of wetland disturbance. The results suggest that number of genera has potential as a screening tool for assessing bryophyte community quality in wetlands in some regions.
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ISSN:0277-5212
1943-6246
DOI:10.1007/s13157-016-0773-4