At some point you may have wondered what exactly moss is and how important it is. as revealed A study conducted by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), this non-vascular plant is more relevant than we think and brings various benefits to our ecosystem and we may overlook, Moss can store, for example, total 6.430 million tons of soil carbon and can regulate soil temperature and humidity, It has a role in the biodiversity of the land it occupies essential to the sustainability of the rest of nature around it, And for us. Manuel Delgado, head of the IRNAS-CSIC Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functions Laboratory (BioFunLab), details some of its main features.
Moss can spread rapidly and regulate soil temperature, moisture and carbon levels.
“Soil moss often goes unnoticed to our eyes. This study constitutes First evidence on a global scale that these tiny plants provide multiple ecosystem services ranging from carbon sequestration to greater availability of nutrients and reduced decomposition of organic matter or the presence of plant pathogens”, they collect from the journal Nature Geoscience. Moss It can cover an area of more than 9.4 million square kilometers where it was born, and its expansion is difficult to control, as it can live in almost any type of soil. The research in question has been conducted in 123 different ecosystems with different climates and environments.The loss of moss is dangerous and it is convenient to protect their environment
Delgado also warns about the dangers of moss loss on the planet, something that is already happening and could do us a lot of harm considering that it allows the nonvascular plant to sequester carbon : “15% decrease on moss cover, as a result of climate change or direct soil disturbance by human action, equal to the annual loss of carbon released into the atmosphere by other changes in land use“. Felipe Bastida, a researcher at the Center for Soil Science and Applied Biology of Segura (CEBAS-CSIC), highlights that mosses generate “ecosystem services fundamental to humanity, such as carbon sequestration or water filtering”.
I am very happy to share our new #BioFunLab @IRNAS_CSIC @CSIC study
The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services @NatureGeosci https://t.co/jb9T0UAVzl
This one is a special one for me & represents the efforts of years of hard work w/ @DJ_Eldridge! & others pic.twitter.com/uOzWJh7uSJ
— ManuDelgadoBaquerizo (@ManuDelBaq) May 1, 2023
