Discovery News - Moss: The breakfast of champions

It's not just carbon dioxide that feeds a forest. Trees also depend on nitrogen to grow. And the best buffet of nitrogen comes from moss-loving bacteria.

But to get a really nutritious growth of bacteria going, the moss needs to age. Bacteria, called cyanobacteria, that grow in moss on centuries-old trees, are twice as effective at fixing nitrogen as the same type of bacteria living in moss on the ground, according to research by Zoë Lindo of McGill University...

“What we’re doing is putting large old trees into a context where they’re an integral part of what a forest is,” said Lindo in a McGill University press release.