Some tropical forests hold astonishing diversity and biomass of bryophytes intertwined in a tapestry covering rocks, leaves, trunks, and entire tree crowns. Yet, we understand little about the roles of bryophytes in the dynamics of water, carbon, and nutrients, such as nitrogen, in these "mossy" forests. Because these roles of bryophytes likely differ from those described for other ecosystems and latitudes, in this Inspire session we will address two questions: i) how to assess the roles of highly diverse bryophyte communities on each of these dynamics? and ii) how to forecast bryophyte community fate in tropical forests under climate change.
