WHERE DO MOSSES LIVE?

Most plants live in soil, or sometimes in water or sand depending on the environment, and use their roots to absorb nutrients from the soil. Since mosses don’t have roots, they don’t get nutrients from soil, and so they can live on many different kinds of surfaces instead of in soil. These surfaces can range from rock, bark, soil, leaves, corpses, to animal dung, the surface that a moss lives on can indicate what kind of life strategy the moss has. 

For example, mosses that live on the bark of trees typically live for a few years because tree branches are relatively long-lasting; however, these mosses may not live as long as mosses that live on boulders, which last much longer than tree branches. Mosses that live on soil typically do not live for very long, because most bare patches of soil will be filled in by more complex plants within a few years. Mosses can also live on cyclical habitats, such as areas that are seasonally flooded.