9626747 Churchill A collaborative effort between the PI and Colombian colleagues, this project will provide a complete floristic treatment of the mosses of Colombia. The Colombian moss flora contains 68 families, 256 genera and 889 species, and is estimated to represent 10% of the total worldwide diversity of mosses, 30-40% of the Neotropical moss diversity, and 53-60% of all mosses in the tropical Andes. The emphasis of this proposal is concise species descriptions, but higher taxa (genera and families) will also be described so as to make the work useful to workers in Venezuela south to southern Peru as well as those in Colombia. A database of 15,000 collections of Colombian mosses, as well as the text of the Prodromus Bryologiae Novo-Granatensis (in both English and Spanish) and a catalogue of Colombian moss types will be made available via the Internet in addition to the results of the current project. Species descriptions and distribution maps will be added to the Internet server in regular updates. This project will have significant impact on knowledge about neotropical mosses, which play an important role in maintaining and preserving montane landscapes.
