flood depth and duration for some bryos in a sinkhole

me again.

In my day job I am a jack of all trades, however sometimes I look at karst aquifers. I have just published an article on measuring flow into a doline / sinkhole. Anyhow I managed to scrape in some flood depth and duration data for the bryos living at the base of the sinkhole including; Gymnocolea inflata, Sphagnum denticulatum, Warnstorfia fluitans and Mnium hornum. Interestingly (or not you may tell me) is that they are all tolerant of flood depths of up to 6m for durations of 20-40% of the study period (a year). The crux of the paper was the actual hydrology however I made a call that these small ephemeral ponds are under-recorded and should be considered as wetlands? Who knows?
Maybe there is someone out there who wants to survey some upland dolines ? I hope to be supervising a MSc looking at dolines on Mynydd Llangynidr this year, so if anyone is interested, or you have students or others asking for experience, then ill be messing around up there in the very near future, im sure there will be room for one more !

Right off to a Bar-b-q, time to pack sunglasses, shorts, raincoat and umbrella.

Full paper is free to download at this link http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/513515/

Kilvey revisited

A 30 minute search on a barren-looking patch in the north-west corner of the hill SS66609490
produced my first record of Lophozia bicrenata (two lower images). After keying it out I gave it the sniff test and was amazed, despite the diminutive size of my sample, how strong the distinctive leathery smell was. Associates were Gymnocolea inflata (abundant, below: top pic), with occasional Pohlia annotina, Pogonatum aloides, Pohlia nutans, Cephaloziella hampeana, Calluna vulgaris, Festuca ovina and Diplophyllum albicans.

I've no idea what contaminant is inhibiting the growth of vascular plants in this area, but the bryophyte assemblage is very different from the metallophyte community at Pluck Lake, where Weissia controversa var. densifolia and Bryum pallescens grow in abundance.