Monitoring Lichen Diversity and Ecosystem Function

Abstract

Concern about maintaining the biodiversity of lichen species and communities has been an issue with lichenologists for many years. Beginning over 100 years ago with effects of air pollution (see Section 1, this volume), and expanding in the last 50 years to include effects of land management and fragmentation of natural habitats, concern about the loss of lichen biodiversity in connection with human modification of natural environments has led to many studies designed to assess patterns and monitor trends of lichen biodiversity and community composition world-wide (reviews by [1, 7]). More recently, recognition of the regional, continent-wide, and even global scale of threats to the normal function of lichens in ecosystems [10] has fostered studies and monitoring efforts designed to assess the large-scale impact of multiple threats to the structure, composition, and function of lichen communities (e.g. [5]). As modern conservation concepts have expanded to include traditionally neglected groups of organisms, it has become more appreciated that understanding and maintaining the biodiversity of taxa other than vascular plants and vertebrate animals must be addressed explicitly [2–4, 6]. Lichens demand specific conservation strategies [7] and approaches to monitoring [9]. The desire to compare and evaluate the most current approaches to monitoring lichen biodiversity and ecosystem function was the motivation for the chapters in Section 2 of this volume.