Moss regulates soil evaporation leading to decoupling of soil and near-surface air temperatures

Purpose Moss covers a vast area from the polar to the tropics on a global scale and has important regulatory effects on the biogeochemical processes in the soil. Previous studies had shown that moss on soil could reduce soil temperature in the warm period and plays an important role in the stability of the soil carbon pool in the context of global warming. The cooling effect of soil temperature by moss may be due to its ability to accelerate soil water evaporation. Most vascular plants achieve limited homeothermy by transpiration, but moss has no organs which can regulate transpiration. Can moss also regulate soil water evaporation as the transpiration of vascular plants? The objective of this study was to determine the differences in temperature and evaporation between moss-covered and bare soil.