Thirteen years on the hunt for Buxbaumia viridis in the Czech Republic: still on the tip of the iceberg?

Abstract

Rare epixylic moss Buxbaumia viridis, which is one of the “Annex II” species of the European “Habitat directive”, has been recorded at 124 localities in the Czech Republic in course of the last 13 years. Most of them were discovered in the last five years following a dedicated search at both historical sites of occurrence and new localities with putatively suitable habitat conditions. The recent and historical area of occupancy and extent of occurrence are not obviously different, although most of the recent localities are concentrated in the Western Carpathians and the Hrubý Jeseník Mts. Surprisingly, only 38% of the localities are located in natural forest habitats, of which herb-rich and acidophilous beech forests were among the most commonly inhabited ones. The rest of occurrences were recorded in non-natural forests (habitats strongly influenced or created by man), particularly the coniferous forest plantations. Sufficient amount of decaying wood of the advanced decay stages, as well as sufficient and constant humidity are crucial prerequisites for the occurrence of B. viridis in both types of forests. True epixylic moss Herzogiella seligeri and the liverwort Chiloscyphus profundus were recorded as the most common associated species, while the rest of commonly co-occurring species were facultatively epixylic, ground or ubiquitous bryophytes; other specialized and rare epixylic mosses or liverworts were only rarely recorded. We also designed a potential distribution model for B. viridis based on the distribution of habitats most commonly occupied by the studied moss. Despite the simplicity of the model, its close match with the recent distribution in the Western Carpathians, the Hrubý Jeseník Mts. and Šumava Mts. supports its relevance for the real distribution of B. viridis.