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The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services

Nature Geoscience volume 16, pages 430–438 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Soil mosses are among the most widely distributed organisms on land. Experiments and observations suggest that they contribute to terrestrial soil biodiversity and function, yet their ecological contribution to soil has never been assessed globally under natural conditions. Here we conducted the most comprehensive global standardized field study to quantify how soil mosses influence 8 ecosystem services associated with 24 soil biodiversity and functional attributes across wide environmental gradients from all continents. We found that soil mosses are associated with greater carbon sequestration, pool sizes for key nutrients and organic matter decomposition rates but a lower proportion of soil-borne plant pathogens than unvegetated soils. Mosses are especially important for supporting multiple ecosystem services where vascular-plant cover is low. Globally, soil mosses potentially support 6.43 Gt more carbon in the soil layer than do bare soils. The amount of soil carbon associated with mosses is up to six times the annual global carbon emissions from any altered land use globally. The largest positive contribution of mosses to soils occurs under perennial, mat and turf mosses, in less-productive ecosystems and on sandy soils. Our results highlight the contribution of mosses to soil life and functions and the need to conserve these important organisms to support healthy soils.

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Fig. 1: A global survey of mosses to investigate soil biodiversity and function.
Fig. 2: Global distribution of soil mosses.
Fig. 3: Contribution of mosses and vascular plants to multiple ecosystem services.
Fig. 4: Contribution of vascular plants and mosses to multiservices.
Fig. 5: Environmental factors associated with the contribution of mosses to multiple ecosystem services.

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Data availability

All the materials, raw data, and protocols used in the article are available upon request. Data used in this study can be found in the Figshare data repository https://figshare.com/s/b152d06e53066d08b934 ref. 51.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Wardle for his insightful comments on an earlier draft and A. Gallardo for his assistance during sample collection. We are grateful to V. Hugonnot, J. G. Segarra-Moragues, F. Müller, S. Stix, I. Charissou, D. Yann, M.-F. Indorf and BRYONET for assistance identifying moss species. We thank S. C. Angorrilla for help with laboratory analyses. The study work associated with this paper was funded by a Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society (no. LRB17\1019; MUSGONET). D.J.E. is supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation. M.D.-B. was supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC2018-025483-I), a project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i (PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033a) and a project PAIDI 2020 from the Junta de Andalucía (P20_00879). E.G. is supported by the European Research Council grant agreement 647038 (BIODESERT). M.B. is supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from Spanish Ministry of Science (RYC2021-031797-I). A.d.l.R is supported by the AEI project PID2019-105469RB-C22. L.W. and Jianyong Wang are supported by the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011) and the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan (2013-373). The contributions of T.G. and T.U.N. were supported by the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107) and the research projects J4-3098 and J4-4547 of the Slovenian Research Agency. The contribution of P.B.R. was supported by the NSF Biological Integration Institutes grant DBI-2021898. J. Durán and A. Rodríguez acknowledge support from the FCT (2020.03670.CEECIND and SFRH/BDP/108913/2015, respectively), as well as from the MCTES, FSE, UE and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Planning and Environment c/o Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of NSW, Sydney, New Souh Wales, Australia

    David J. Eldridge

  2. Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of NSW, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    David J. Eldridge & Jingyi Ding

  3. Instituto Multidisciplinar para el Estudio del Medio ‘Ramón Margalef’, Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain

    Emilio Guirado

  4. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  5. Institute for Global Change Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  6. Department of Biology, Botany Area, University of Cádiz, Vitivinicultural and Agri-Food Research Institute (IVAGRO) Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain

    Raúl Ochoa-Hueso

  7. Departamento de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Berdugo

  8. Departamento de Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

    Tadeo Sáez-Sandino

  9. Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, University of Seville, Seville, Spain

    José L. Blanco-Pastor

  10. Mycology and Microbiology Center, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Leho Tedersoo

  11. National Museum of Natural History, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain

    César Plaza & Ana Rey

  12. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Jingyi Ding

  13. Institute of Grassland Science, Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology of the Ministry of Education, Jilin Songnen Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China

    Wei Sun, Haiying Cui, Ling Wang, Jianyong Wang & Tianxue Yang

  14. College of Agriculture and Bioresources Department of Soil Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

    Steven Mamet

  15. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ji-Zheng He

  16. School of Agriculture and Food, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Ji-Zheng He & Hang-Wei Hu

  17. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Blessing Sokoya

  18. GEMA Center for Genomics, Ecology and Environment, Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile

    Sebastian Abades & Fernando Alfaro

  19. Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB), Santiago, Chile

    Fernando Alfaro

  20. Natural History Museum (Botany Unit), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Adebola R. Bamigboye

  21. CEBAS-CSIC, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

    Felipe Bastida & José L. Moreno

  22. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Asunción de los Ríos

  23. Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Jorge Durán & Alexandra Rodríguez

  24. Instituto de Suelos - INTA Castelar, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Luján, Luján, Argentina

    Juan J. Gaitan

  25. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Carlos A. Guerra

  26. Slovenian Forestry Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Tine Grebenc & Tina U. Nahberger

  27. Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

    Javier G. Illán

  28. College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China

    Yu-Rong Liu

  29. Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, DSI/NRF SARChI in Marine Microbiomics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Thulani P. Makhalanyane & Xin-Quan Zhou

  30. Ecology and Evolution Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of NSW, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Max Mallen-Cooper

  31. Laboratorio de Ecología Integrativa, Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile

    Marco A. Molina-Montenegro

  32. CEAZA, Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile

    Marco A. Molina-Montenegro

  33. Laboratório de Sistemática Vegetal, Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Gabriel F. Peñaloza-Bojacá

  34. Departamento de Biología, Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad de Cádiz, Puerto Real, Spain

    Sergio Picó

  35. Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, México D.F., México

    Christina Siebe

  36. Departamento de Botânica e Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Boa Esperança, Cuiabá, Brazil

    Alberto L. Teixido

  37. Grupo de Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (BCG), Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Campus Fernando May, Chillán, Chile

    Cristian Torres-Díaz

  38. Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Pankaj Trivedi

  39. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Juntao Wang

  40. Department of Natural Resources, Agricultural Research Organization, Institute of Plant Sciences, Gilat Research Center, Mobile Post Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel

    Eli Zaady

  41. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China

    Xiaobing Zhou

  42. Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Guiyao Zhou

  43. College of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, China

    Shengen Liu

  44. Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Funcionamiento Ecosistémico, Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS), CSIC, Seville, Spain

    Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

  45. Unidad Asociada CSIC-UPO (BioFun), Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

    Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

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  50. Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo
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Contributions

M.D.-B. and D.J.E. developed the original idea of the analyses presented in the paper. M.D.-B. designed the field study and wrote the grant that funded the work. Field data were collected by M.D.-B., D.J.E., M.B., J.L.B.-P., C.P., S.M., S.A., F.A., A.R.B., A.d.l.R., J. Durán., T.G., J.G.I., Y.-R.L., T.P.M., M.A.M.-M. T.U.N., G.F.P.-B., A. Rey, A. Rodriguez, C.S., A.L.T., C.T.-D., P.T., L.W., Jianyong Wang, E.Z., X.Z. and X.-Q.Z. Laboratory analyses were performed by M.D.-B., H.-W.H., J.-Z.H., F.B., J.L.M., L.T., T.S.-S., T.Y., W.S., H.C., S.P. and P.T. Mapping and remote sensing were performed by J.J.G., E.G. and C.A.G. and bioinformatic analyses by B.S., Juntao Wang, H.-W.H. and J.-Z.H. Meta-analytical data were collected by S.L. and G.Z. Statistical analyses were carried out by M.D.-B, J. Ding and M.M.-C. The paper was written by D.J.E. and M.D.-B. and edited by P.B.R., R.O.-H. and J. Ding with contributions from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to David J. Eldridge or Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Bernhard Schmid, Brian Steidinger and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Xujia Jiang, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–19, Tables 1–9 and Appendices 1–5.

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Supplementary Video 1

Video showing a sample of study sites in Google Earth and photographs of their mosses.

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Eldridge, D.J., Guirado, E., Reich, P.B. et al. The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services. Nat. Geosci. 16, 430–438 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01170-x

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