Sphagnum baby. Several of the world's largest wetlands are sphagnum-dominated bogs, including the West Siberian Lowland, the Hudson Bay Lowland and the Mackenzie River Valley. These areas provide habitat for common and rare species. They also store large amounts of carbon, which helps reduce global warming. The U.S. gets up to 80% of sphagnum peat moss it uses from Canada. In Canada, the peat bog mass harvested each year is an estimated 1/60th of the mass that accumulates. About .02% of the 270 million acres (422,000 square miles) of Canadian peat bog are used for peat moss mining. Some efforts are
Aulacomnium palustre plant communities, and individual moss species often have low cover and/or frequency. Moss species with coverages of 2% to 4% can be common to dominant in boreal communities, although ribbed bog moss attains coverages as great as 40% in some boreal communities. Ribbed bog moss grows in open and forested wetland communities. In unforested northern communities, ribbed bog moss is found in sedge ("Carex" spp.) meadows, sphagnum ("Sphagnum" spp.) peatlands, heath-sedge fens, and willow ("Salix" spp.)-dominated fens. In forests, ribbed bog moss grows in the ground layer of boreal and subboreal white spruce ("Picea glauca"), black spruce ("P. mariana"), mixed