Bioindicators The Ecological and Economic Importance of Bryophytes
marine ones, covering moist areas, creeks, rivers or periodically flooded areas. The majority of liverworts are terrestrial plant, the other are epiphytic and
saxicolous plants Gradstein et al. 2001.
Liverworts have wide distribution area cosmopolitan and abundant in the area of tropical rain forest. The abundance and diversity of liverworts increased
with elevation. Diversity of liverworts in term of number of genera is highest in the submontane and lower montane forest. The species richness is highest in the
upper montane forest Gradstein et al. 2001.
The number of liverwort species also increase with addition of habitat number especially epiphytic. Approximately 20 Marchantiophyta are as
shaded epiphytes on primary forest and disappear on secondary forest or plantations and may be lost if the forest is opened Gradstein et al. 2001.
Liverworts have a very wide distribution, due to their dispersal by spores that are easily blown by wind from low to high elevation and from one region to
others. The spread of spores that can reach long distances, very important to make
a new population in more distant places. Therefore, endemic species of liverwort is rare and lower than the seed plants. Liverworts have much larger geographical
ranges than flowering plants Korpelainen et al. 2005.
Liverworts are distributed throughout the world. The main distribution pattern in bryophyte followed Hyvonen 1989 are
: 1 New Guinea or Western
Melanesia: the whole island of New Guinea: west Sepik, East Sepik, Madang, Morobe, Enga, Western Highlands, Simbu, Eastern Highlands, Sothern
Highlands, Gulf, Milne Bay, Papuan Islands, New Britain, New Ireland, Manus, and Bougenville; 2 Malesian Region: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei,
Sabah, Papua New Guinea the Solomon Islands excluded, and Philippines. Papua New Guinea, and Philippines; 3 South East Asian: ranging from Asia 2
China, Japan, Korea, Asia 3 Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam to Asia 4 Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Sabah, Papua New Guinea, and Philippines; 4 Asian-Oceanian-Australian: including Asian, Oceanian and Australian. This
distribution tipe can be divided into 3 subgroups Asian-Oceanian, Asian- Oceanian-Australian and Asian-Australian; 5 Transpacific: including area
between America and Eastern Asia; 6 Paleotropical: widespread in all other tropical areas except America. This region includes tropical Africa, tropical Asia
and the tropical Pasific region except for the Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island; 7 Pantropical: throughout the tropics and subtropics, from the southeastern USA
to northern Argentina, futhermore in Africa, Macaronesia and along the coast of West Europe, and in Asia to Australia, New Zealand and Oceania; 8 southern
hemisphere: the area restricted to the Southern Hemisphere, contains all or parts of five continents Antarctica, Australia, apart of South America, the southern
third of Africa, and some southern islands in Asia; 9 northern hemisphere: the northern hemisphere is the northern half of the earth, consists of all of Europe,
North America and Asia, a portion of South America, two-thirds of the African continent and a very small portion of the Australian continent with islands in New
Guinea; 10 miscellaneous: the species that cannot be included in any of geographical group mentioned are listed here; 11 widely distributed
cosmopolite: the distribution type is used for extremely widely distributed species.
3 METHODS