Description
Bryophytes and lichens are particularly sensitive to small variations of moisture availability, strongly affected by the precipitation pattern, in turn modified by global warming conse-quences (Dore, 2005). For this reason, the aim of the present study is to monitor these organ-isms as biosensors for understanding the influence of microclimate on large scale ecosys-tems and its help in overcoming climate changes. The disposal of cutting-edge analytical techniques for monitoring such organisms directly in the field, allows to increase the in-depth knowledge about how ecosystem manage and storage water for adapting to global warming.
Due to the different adopted strategies of lichens and bryophytes, is important to highlight the response to microclimatic factors as the water availability during hydration and dehydra-tion cycles which can differ greatly between these organisms. From an analytical perspec-tive, the water status of lichens and bryophytes can be monitored by means of near infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging, which combines the advantages of NIR spectroscopy and im-aging to obtain both spectral and the spatial evaluation of the samples. From the images, wa-ter maps are developed applying dedicated chemometric algorithms aimed at understanding the correlation between organisms and water spectral features. Thanks to this dedicated strategy it is possible to investigate the relationship between competition and facilitation by visualising the water presence at a microscale level with the aim of visualizing, for the first time, how the thalli can prolong water availability depending on the composition of the community.
