These mosses seem to be quite happy living on rock in moisture-rich Iceland.
I recently read a book telling the fictional story of a woman from the 1800s who studied mosses, and it occurred to me that I have really no clue about moss conservation or even moss ecology. I know that mosses tend to grow in moist locations, they don’t get very tall, and, like all plants, their generations alternate between spore-producing and gamete-producing forms. That’s not a lot to go on. Since I often see mosses growing between cracks in the pavement or on the bark of trees, it may be that their place in our world is relatively secure. It may be that they face big challenges. And perhaps we just don’t know enough to pick a side. So I’ll be spending the next few weeks trying to get a sense of how stable moss populations are around the world, whether they face any conservation challenges, and if they play a role in the conservation issues of other organisms.