Uchida et al. 2002

Uchida M, Muraoka H, Nakatsubo T, Bekku Y, Ueno T, Kanda H, Koizumi H. 2002. Net photosynthesis, respiration, and production of the moss Sanionia uncinata on a glacier foreland in the High Arctic, Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 34: 287-292.

These authors constructed a model of moss physiology that uses meteorological data to estimate productivity, based on data collected during one field season at Svalbard. In 2000, these authors measured the response of a common High Arctic moss species to water content, temperature, and light, then determined the relationship between those variables and available meteorological data, then applied previous-years meteorological data to their model and estimated previous-years productivity. These estimates suggest a great deal of variation in year-to-year productivity, driven largely by differences in water availability. Water content of fresh moss tissue was the single most important controlling variable in moss photosynthesis rates. The response to temperature was nearly flat between 7 and 23ºC, with near-freezing photosynthetic rates still a large fraction of maximum under saturating light conditions. Saturating light conditions were estimated at near 800µmol/m^2/s, which is not uncommon on sunny days in this environment.

The glacial foreground in question is at 79º North, but is not polar desert as it receives approximately 360mm of precipitation per year. The moss species studied is dominant in the local ecosystem, but appears to represent an intermediate successional stage, with high-productivity vascular plants replacing bryophytes in older sites in the area (i.e. further from the toe of the glacier).