Mosses are fuzzy, squishy warriors in the fight against climate change - MLive.com

Mosses are fuzzy, squishy warriors in the fight against climate change - mlive.com

Moss growing on stones, trees, and riverbanks around the planet collectively play a crucial role in fighting climate change, new research shows.

Researchers learned that through photosynthesis, mosses sequester around 6.43 billion metric tons more carbon into the soil than what is stored in bare patches of soil without any plants. That calculates to six times the annual global carbon emissions caused by worldwide changes in land use, such as deforestation, urbanization, and mining.

The study published in Nature Geoscience and was led by a dryland ecologist in Australia and an ecosystem ecologist in Spain.

One of the scientists who co-authored the recent study was forest ecologist Peter Reich, director of the Institute for Global Change Biology at University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

“Like forests, mosses stabilize the microclimates and physical environments beneath them,” Reich said. “Additionally, they provide minerals and carbon to the soil and thus offer a better home for the soil microbiome than areas of bare ground.”

The study found that moss-covered soil not only enhances carbon storage in soil, but also accelerates rates of organic decomposition and leads to fewer cases of soil-borne plant pathogens.

The research team of several dozen scientists from 16 countries examined spoil samples from a diverse range of ecosystems across every continent. In addition to carbon storage, they analyzed traits associated with biodiversity protections.

Moss is found around the planet; researchers calculated mosses covers an area of more than 3.6 million square miles – like the size of Canada or China. Researchers argue this further underscores why mosses can have such a significant effect on soil biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

“These findings support the idea that we can use nature in a variety of ways to fight climate change,” Reich said.

“Mosses matter because they show that even tiny plants in harsh environments are capable of acquiring and storing carbon, just like trees do elsewhere. And both tiny plants and larger trees do this across the whole globe.”

Reich suggested that scientists should focus on understanding the capacity of all vegetation to scrub carbon from the atmosphere, not just trees and mosses.

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