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Habitat quality and disturbance drive lichen species richness in a temperate biodiversity hotspot

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Abstract

The impacts of disturbance on biodiversity and distributions have been studied in many systems. Yet, comparatively less is known about how lichens–obligate symbiotic organisms–respond to disturbance. Successful establishment and development of lichens require a minimum of two compatible yet usually unrelated species to be present in an environment, suggesting disturbance might be particularly detrimental. To address this gap, we focused on lichens, which are obligate symbiotic organisms that function as hubs of trophic interactions. Our investigation was conducted in the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA. We conducted complete biodiversity inventories of lichens (all growth forms, reproductive modes, substrates) across 47, 1-ha plots to test classic models of responses to disturbance (e.g., linear, unimodal). Disturbance was quantified in each plot using a standardized suite of habitat quality variables. We additionally quantified woody plant diversity, forest density, rock density, as well as environmental factors (elevation, temperature, precipitation, net primary productivity, slope, aspect) and analyzed their impacts on lichen biodiversity. Our analyses recovered a strong, positive, linear relationship between lichen biodiversity and habitat quality: lower levels of disturbance correlate to higher species diversity. With few exceptions, additional variables failed to significantly explain variation in diversity among plots for the 509 total lichen species, but we caution that total variation in some of these variables was limited in our study area. Strong, detrimental impacts of disturbance on lichen biodiversity raises concerns about conservation and land management practices that fail to incorporate complete estimates of biodiversity, especially from ecologically important organisms such as lichens.

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Data accessibility

The entirety of the dataset used herein is included in Electronic Supplemental Material Appendix 1, including the georeferenced locality, elevation, aspect, slope, the number of lichens (total, micro- and macrolichens, sexual and asexual lichens, and four growth forms), disturbances scores (HQ), rock coverage, number of trees, sum of tree diameters, average annual temperature, precipitation, and net primary productivity (NPP) for each of the 47 sites. GIS layers from which the average annual temperature, precipitation, NPP were extracted are publicly available at http://www.worldclim.org/bioclim and http://www.ntsg.umt.edu/project/modis/default.php. OTU tables with taxonomic information, fasta files with representative sequences for each OTU, a metadata file and mapping file are available for download at http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1270900. All taxonomic and inventory data are freely available at http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/vh/.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for permission to conduct fieldwork on federal and state lands including the U.S. National Park Service (particularly, Mary Shew, Little River Canyon N.P.), U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (particularly, Jo Lewis, Chief of Natural Heritage). We thank Carly Anderson Stewart and Jordan Hoffman for contributions to fieldwork and Nolan Kane, Kyle Keepers, Cloe Pogoda, and Kristin White for additional conversation. We additionally are grateful to two anonymous reviewers as well as Anne Pringle whose comments improved an earlier version of the manuscript. This research was made possible by a National Science Foundation Dimensions of Biodiversity Award to University of Colorado (Award #1542629) and New York Botanical Garden (Award #1432629).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Erin A. Tripp & Christy M. McCain

  2. University of Colorado, Museum of Natural History, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Erin A. Tripp & Christy M. McCain

  3. The New York Botanical Garden, Institute of Systematic Botany, Bronx, NY, 10458-5126, USA

    James C. Lendemer

Authors
  1. Erin A. Tripp
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  2. James C. Lendemer
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  3. Christy M. McCain
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Contributions

EAT, JCL, and CMM conceived the study, collected the data, conducted the analyses, and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erin A. Tripp.

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Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interests. The work was funded by the US National Science Foundation (see award numbers in acknowledgements).

Additional information

Communicated by Anne Pringle.

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Tripp, E.A., Lendemer, J.C. & McCain, C.M. Habitat quality and disturbance drive lichen species richness in a temperate biodiversity hotspot. Oecologia 190, 445–457 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04413-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04413-0

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