Evaluation of the potential of bryophytes to support seedlings development on waste rocks: a mesocosm study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Revegetating waste rocks is essential for re-establishing a functional ecosystem, but it poses significant challenges. Nutrient-poor soil and high exposure to elements cause high seedling mortality in the first year. Survival can be increased by amending soil with organic matter before plantation to improve water retention and nutrient availability. However, this method comes with high environmental and economic costs. Using mesocosms, we tested the use of bryophytes as an alternative to improve seedling survival due to their ability to create a beneficial microclimate with improved soil humidity and increased nutrient availability, especially through biological nitrogen fixation. Two bryophyte species ( Racomitrium canescens (Hedw.) Brid., an early succession, and Pleurozium schreberi (Brid.) Mitt., a late succession species) were evaluated with three higher plant species ( Pinus banksiana, Rhododendron groenlandicum, and Populus balsamifera) planted in waste rocks. We further evaluated two distinct techniques for the application of bryophytes on waste rocks: evenly spreading fragments on the soil surface and regrouping the fragments around the higher plant stem. Results showed that Racomitrium canescens fixed significantly more nitrogen than Pleurozium schreberi on waste rock. On the contrary, Pleurozium schreberi released more nitrogen into the soil than Racomitrium canescens, likely due to higher mortality and nutrient loss during drying/rewetting cycles. While the short-term impact of bryophytes on seedlings was limited in this 6-month experiment, results suggest that bryophytes have the potential to support higher plants in the challenging conditions of waste rock revegetation by increasing nitrogen supply to seedlings. Implications for practice Strategies for restoring waste rock piles using local plant species and limiting the use of exogenous material, such as organic matter amendment, are essential for responsible management of disturbed sites Including bryophytes in revegetation practices can improve seedlings survival after plantation on waste rocks by increasing the availability of essential nutrients such as nitrogen. Methods for applying bryophyte stems tested here in mesocosms provide a benchmark for future tests on real waste rocks.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".