New records of bryophytes for the state of Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil 1

The aim of this study was to complete the species list and disseminate data regarding the diversity of bryophytes in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. We registered 51 species of bryophytes (11 mosses and 40 liverworts) as new records for Rio Grande do Sul, of which six represent the second records for Brazil.

The study of the bryophytes of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, was initiated by Sehnem (1953) with the excellent paper "Elementos austral-antárticos na flora briológica do Rio Grande do Sul" ("Austral-Antarctic elements in the bryological flora of the state of Rio Grande do Sul").The author published a series of works with the aim of compiling a flora of the mosses of southern Brazil (Sehnem 1955;1969;1970;1972;1976;1978;1979;1980).
The motivation for this study was the occurrence of species not yet cited for the state of Rio Grande do Sul observed during a survey of terrestrial and corticolous bryophytes, in a fragment of restinga (coastal woodland) in the extreme south of Brazil, in the city of Rio Grande.An additional motivation was the existence of several unidentified samples deposited in the Herbarium of the Botanical Institute of São Paulo (code, SP), which were analyzed and from which new records have been included here.Therefore, this study imparts new information to contribute to the knowledge of the diversity and biogeography of bryophytes in the state.
From among samples collected in the field and deposited in the SP herbarium, we identified 500.The identification of samples was based on the studies of Gradstein & Costa (2003), Vaz & Costa (2006a) and Sharp et al. (1994).We used the classification system devised by Buck & Goffinet (2000) for Bryophyta and that devised by Crandall-Stotler & Stotler (2000) for Marchantiophyta.The species are listed alphabetically, by division, family and species, in Tab. 1.
We listed 51 species of bryophytes (11 mosses and 40 liverworts) as new records for the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Tab.1).In relation to the 526 taxa cited by Forzza et al. (2010), these new taxa correspond to an increase of approximately 10% in the bryoflora of the state.Most of the species observed in the present study occur primarily in the more southern regions of Brazil.There were 46 species that have a wide distribution in Brazil, as was expected because our sampling environment was the Atlantic Forest.The remaining five species (Anomobryum perimbricatum, Bryum muehlenbeckii, Schizymenium campylocarpum, Jensenia spinosa and Plagiochila boryana) are noteworthy, because our report represents their second records for Brazil, and all five species typically occur at higher elevations in environments with milder temperatures.These new records make an important contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the phytogeography of bryophytes, because the state of Rio Grande do Sul, although relatively well sampled, is in the extreme south of Brazil, and even common species had not yet been recorded for this state.
The large number of new records reported in the present study, in comparison with that reported in the study conducted by Yano & Bordin (2011)-51 versus 15-is probably attributable to the diversity of environments sampled in the present study, as well as to the larger number of samples analyzed-500 versus 288.
Updated inferences on the composition and biogeography of bryophytes in southern Brazil are probably inconsistent, considering that one asystematic survey led to an increase of 10% in the bryoflora of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.Therefore, additional surveys in the biomes of the region should be carried out in order to properly evaluate the community of bryophytes in the state.

Table 1 .
List of new records of bryophytes for the state of Rio Grande do Sul.