MEIJER, WILLEM. School of Biological Sciences. University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0225. - Aims and prospects for the global biodiversity studies of Bryophytes, Hornworts and Lichens.
With all our efforts for genetic research do we care for what the
general public would like to learn about our non vascular embryonic
cryptogams? If we stay in our ivory towers we may ultimate loose all
public support and cryptogam studies might wither away as fast as the
habitats we like to see preserved. Our efforts in research, teaching
and public education are in need of rethinking. People walking in the
rich forests of the Appalachian mountains or somewhere in the Rockies
or the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest and naively
looking for some users friendly books on our beloved cryptogams will
be disappointed. In Great Britain, the Mid European region and Japan,
good non-vascular cryptogam floras, pocket editions of floras are now
available, but not in the Malesian area between China and Australia.
Rudi Schuster once said, for Eastern North America, "we need an
integrated survey of the field of Hepaticology". After he
finished his monumental work forty years later who can afford to buy
his flora? What we should do is to make the Federal agencies dealing
with National parks, National Forests and Wild life areas more aware
of this. Bold plans for the speedy production of concise user friendly
guides are needed. Microscopes should be considered as much needed as
Computers at Field research stations and at local magnet schools
surrounded by Natural Areas. Young people should be introduced to the
life of non vascular cryptogamic plants at their high schools if not
earlier. The production of local florulas should be sponsored as much
as possible. Emphasis should be put in the first place on distinction
of genera, the study of living plants and their ecology. For several
reasons this is much more needed for liverworts than mosses.
Key words: bryophytes, field guides, global biodiversity, hornworts, lichens, mosses