Stripped moss beds regrow only centimeters per year on smooth mature bark

Evidence

Bryologists have been studying some experimentally harvested plots in order to estimate how quickly the mosses will regrow. Our preliminary studies suggest that recovery may require decades. Four years after harvest, the branches of the vine maple are smooth and bare, with scarcely a trace of moss returning. The mosses left at the torn edges of the stripped branch still cling, but creep out onto the bare area at far less than a snail’s pace—a few centimeters in four years. We’ve discovered that the smooth mature bark is simply too smooth and slippery for mosses to get a foothold. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 613

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Hard quantification (centimeters per four years) for any ‘disturbance heals itself’ claim — supports the sustainable-harvest argument and the fine-scale observational method.
• XREF: connects to: Old-growth moss mats recover almost not at all once stripped from trees — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 607; A moss garden that needs wild harvesting is not self-sustaining — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 514; Old-growth moss mats cannot reestablish because only young twigs offer footholds — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 614 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Old-growth moss communities embody centuries that no technique can compress #expands (0.82) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 535