Biodiversity of Bryophytes

Abstract

The Marchantiophyta (liverworts) includes three classes, the Haplomitriopsida, Marchantiopsida and Jungermanniopsida, and 15 orders, 82 families, 316 genera (Table 1.1), and 6,000 species. These small plant groups are distributed nearly everywhere in the world. New species are still being recorded in literature. There are 54 endemic genera in countries of the southern hemisphere, such as New Zealand and Argentina, as shown in Fig. 2.1 (364). In Asia including Japan, a relatively large number of endemic genera (21) has been recorded, but Europe, North America, and Africa including Madagascar are quite poor regions for endemic genera. The richness of the endemic genera of bryophytes in southern hemisphere suggests that the bryophytes might originate in the past from what is now Antarctica some 350,000,000 years ago and then they were introduced to the northern hemisphere during a long range evolutionary process. In Japan, Yaku Island is considered an important place to locate bryophyte species. In the southern hemisphere, New Zealand is one of the best countries to observe many different species of the Marchantiophyta, which are totally different from those found in Japan.