Academic literature on the topic 'Lichen biomonitoring'

Biodiversity inventories are important for informing land management strategies, conservation efforts, and for biomonitoring studies. For many organismal groups, including lichens, comprehensive, accurate inventories are challenging due to the necessity of taxonomic expertise, limitations in sampling protocols, and the commonplace occurrence of morphologically cryptic species and other undescribed species. Lichen communities in arid regions are often dominated by crustose lichens, which have been particularly difficult to incorporate into biodiversity inventories. Here, we explore the utility of DNA metabarcoding for characterizing the diversity of lichen-forming fungi at a typical crustose lichen-dominated site on the Colorado Plateau in the southwestern USA. We assessed the consistency of independent sampling efforts to comprehensively document lichen diversity, evaluated the capability of minimally trained technicians to effectively sample the lichen communities, and provide a metagenomic-based inventory of lichen diversity, including representative sequence data, for a diverse, crustose-dominate lichen community on the Colorado Plateau. Our results revealed that crustose lichen communities in the southwestern USA are more diverse than traditionally thought, and community metabarcoding is a promising strategy for characterizing the lichen-forming fungal diversity more thoroughly than other methods. However, consistently sampling the diversity of crustose lichen communities, even at small spatial scales, remains difficult. Interpreting these results within a traditional taxonomic context remains challenging without the use of vouchers.

The transformation of natural ecosystems due to anthropogenic land use is considered one of the main causes of biodiversity loss. Lichens, due to their poikilohydric nature, are very sensitive to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, lichen communities have been widely used as bioindicators of climatic and environmental changes. In this study, we evaluated how the species richness and community composition of epiphytic lichens respond to land-use intensity in riparian ecosystems of the Andes in southern Ecuador. Additionally, we evaluate how the richness of six functional traits (photobiont type, growth form, and reproductive strategy) changed across the different land-use intensity. We selected 10 trees in twelve sites for a total de 120 trees, equally divided into four riparian land-use intensities (forest, forest-pasture, pasture and urban). We recorded a total of 140 lichen species. Species richness was highest in the forest sites and decreased towards more anthropogenic land uses. Lichen community composition responded to land-use intensity, and was explained by microclimate variables (e.g., precipitation, percentage forested area) and distance to the forest. Richness of functional traits of lichens also differed significantly among the four land-use intensity and decreased from forests to urban land-use. Taxonomic diversity and functional traits can be effectively applied as bioindicators to assess and monitor the effects of land-use changes in the riparian ecosystems of tropical montane regions.

In this study the way of photosynthetic pigments extraction (chlorophylls and carotinoids) from lichens thalli of two species (Lobaria pulmonaria and Cladonia rangiferina) was optimized. Use of dimethylsulphoxide : acetone (2 : 1) mix, without heating of the pigment extract at 65 °C was recommended. Previous rinsing of thallus by acetone depends on a lichen species and habitat conditions (pollution, etc.). By means of the developed technique the chlorophylls and carotenoids content was defined in 21 different lichen species growing in a middle taiga subzone of the Komi Republic. There are folious and bushy lichens among these species. The lichens were divided into three groups according to photobionts: species with green algae, species with cyanobacteria, and tripartite species with green algal photobionts and cyanobacteria in cephalodia. Across species, significant differences on accumulation of photosynthetic pigments pool was revealed. Thallus chlorophyll concentration ranged 0.4–0.6 mg/g, carotenoids – 0.15–0.30 mg/g in the most of studied lichen species. Photosynthetic pigments, especially chlorophyll a, in the lichens thallus can serve as the important bioindicator on the changing environment conditions and criterion of ecological assessment of habitats. It is important for biomonitoring of the environment and use of lichens as medical materials because of their biochemical structure (pigments, polysaccharides, lichen acids, etc.).

Widely spread lichen specie Flavoparmelia caperata is used in a biomonitoring study for atmospheric trace metal pollution in natural ecosystems in Southeastern Serbia. The concentration and distribution pattern of 21 metals in lichens were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. The difference observed between metal deposition in peripheral and central parts of lichen thalli reflected air quality changes in the last and previous years. These findings were confirmed with principal component analysis. Our study demonstrated the accumulation of Ba, K, Mg, Na, Tl and Zn in peripheral parts of thalli, while As, B, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ga, In, Li, Ni, Pb and Se were concentrated in central parts of thalli.