Polytrichum species

Dr Neil Bell

Dr Neil Bell, Bryologist

Backround and Research Interests

I am a bryologist specialising in phylogenetics, taxonomy and biodiversity. Much of my research is focussed on quantifying, understanding and promoting Scotland's globally important bryophyte flora.

I joined RBGE in 2014 after spending nine years in Helsinki, Finland, studying the phylogeny and taxonomy of the moss class Polytrichopsida and the evolution of pleurocarpous mosses. My work includes research into the evolution of key traits underpinning the success of specific bryophyte groups. I'm fascinated by the interactions that occur at nested spatial and temporal scales between plant form, evolutionary convergence and biogeography, and the uneasy interface these create between phylogeny and taxonomy.

Despite being perhaps the best studied in the world, Scotland's bryophyte flora is greatly underappreciated by non-specialists. Temperate and boreal-montane oceanic communities of the type we have in Scotland have parallels in only a few other widely separated regions of limited extent globally, creating networks of relationship over vast distances within which disjunction and convergence can be hard to distinguish. Only by studying Scotland's bryophyte flora in a global context and employing techniques such as phylogenetic analysis and DNA barcoding can we reliably identify species boundaries and quantify evolutionary distinctiveness, this being essential for informing meaningful conservation strategies.

I am editor-in-chief of Journal of Bryology.

Email: nbell@rbge.org.uk 

Address: Neil Bell, Research Scientist (Bryology), 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, UK.

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