Towards efficient monitoring of arctic bryophyte diversity

Global climate change may lead to significant changes in the arctic tundra vegetation, as data from Rosenbergdalen from the 1980s and 2015 suggest. During SEES 2020, we will resample plots at Rosenbergdalen to extend the inference of changes in the bryophyte vegetation composition through time. New approaches to facilitate the identification of arctic bryophyte species (chemocoding and DNA metabarcoding) will be tested to speed up biodiversity assessment and vegetation monitoring. Soil and air metabarcoding will be used to infer the role of airborne diaspores and the soil diaspore bank as sources of propagules that may germinate when environmental conditions change.