Nitrogen deposition causes eutrophication in bryophyte communities in central and northern European forests

Key message

Our results indicate that nitrogen deposition is likely to adversely affect forest bryophyte communities, having negative impacts in terms of increased dominance of nitrophilic species at the expense of N-sensitive species and a decrease in evenness.

Keywords
Nitrogen; Bryophytes; Taxonomic diversity; Functional diversity; Ellenberg indicator values; Europe

Publication
Weldon, J., Merder, J., Ferretti, M. et al. Nitrogen deposition causes eutrophication in bryophyte communities in central and northern European forests. Annals of Forest Science 79, 24 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13595-022-01148-6

Data and/or Code availability
Data are available from UNECE ICP Forests (http://icp-forests.net/page/data-requests) and ICP IM. Restrictions apply to the availability of ICP Forests data, which were used under licence for the current study. Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with permission of UNECE ICP Forests.

Handling Editor
Laurent Bergès