Dataset Information

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

ABSTRACT: Lichens are widely acknowledged to be a key component of high latitude ecosystems. However, the time investment needed for full inventories and the lack of taxonomic identification resources for crustose lichen and lichenicolous fungal diversity have hampered efforts to fully gauge the depth of species richness in these ecosystems. Using a combination of classical field inventory and extensive deployment of chemical and molecular analysis, we assessed the diversity of lichens and associated fungi in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska (USA), a mixed landscape of coastal boreal rainforest and early successional low elevation habitats deglaciated after the Little Ice Age. We collected nearly 5000 specimens and found a total of 947 taxa, including 831 taxa of lichen-forming and 96 taxa of lichenicolous fungi together with 20 taxa of saprotrophic fungi typically included in lichen studies. A total of 98 species (10.3% of those detected) could not be assigned to known species and of those, two genera and 27 species are described here as new to science: Atrophysma cyanomelanos gen. et sp. nov., Bacidina circumpulla, Biatora marmorea, Carneothele sphagnicola gen. et sp. nov., Cirrenalia lichenicola, Corticifraga nephromatis, Fuscidea muskeg, Fuscopannaria dillmaniae, Halecania athallina, Hydropunctaria alaskana, Lambiella aliphatica, Lecania hydrophobica, Lecanora viridipruinosa, Lecidea griseomarginata, L. streveleri, Miriquidica gyrizans, Niesslia peltigerae, Ochrolechia cooperi, Placynthium glaciale, Porpidia seakensis, Rhizocarpon haidense, Sagiolechia phaeospora, Sclerococcum fissurinae, Spilonema maritimum, Thelocarpon immersum, Toensbergia blastidiata and Xenonectriella nephromatis. An additional 71 'known unknown' species are cursorily described. Four new combinations are made: Lepra subvelata (G. K. Merr.) T. Sprib., Ochrolechia minuta (Degel.) T. Sprib., Steineropsis laceratula (Hue) T. Sprib. & Ekman and Toensbergia geminipara (Th. Fr.) T. Sprib. & Resl. Thirty-eight taxa are new to North America and 93 additional taxa new to Alaska. We use four to eight DNA loci to validate the placement of ten of the new species in the orders Baeomycetales, Ostropales, Lecanorales, Peltigerales, Pertusariales and the broader class Lecanoromycetes with maximum likelihood analyses. We present a total of 280 new fungal DNA sequences. The lichen inventory from Glacier Bay National Park represents the second largest number of lichens and associated fungi documented from an area of comparable size and the largest to date in North America. Coming from almost 60°N, these results again underline the potential for high lichen diversity in high latitude ecosystems.

SUBMITTER: Spribille T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7398404 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

Spribille Toby T Fryday Alan M AM Pérez-Ortega Sergio S Svensson Måns M Tønsberg Tor T Ekman Stefan S Holien Håkon H Resl Philipp P Schneider Kevin K Stabentheiner Edith E Thüs Holger H Vondrák Jan J Sharman Lewis L

Lichenologist. 20200301 2

Lichens are widely acknowledged to be a key component of high latitude ecosystems. However, the time investment needed for full inventories and the lack of taxonomic identification resources for crustose lichen and lichenicolous fungal diversity have hampered efforts to fully gauge the depth of species richness in these ecosystems. Using a combination of classical field inventory and extensive deployment of chemical and molecular analysis, we assessed the diversity of lichens and associated fung ...[more]

PMID: 32788812

Similar Datasets

Project description:When balancing environmental preservation and economic development, it is critical to evaluate how taxpayers value national park land and for what they are valuing it. One key component of this evaluation is to calculate a "passive use value," or the willingness to pay (WTP), for protection of land that may never directly be used, and to determine what benefits of land protection motivate this passive use value. We estimated the WTP for a 5% expansion of Denali National Park in Alaska (an expansion of 325,340 acres) using a questionnaire and the contingent valuation method. The survey first educated respondents on Alaskan geography, the current status of protected land and wildlife in Alaska, and common arguments for and against National Park expansion. The survey then described a proposal to expand the Denali National Park and asked a series of questions designed to bound the respondents WTP. Finally, the survey asked respondents to answer questions about what motivated their support or disapproval for the program. Multiple methodologies were used to estimate the national average WTP, resulting in a WTP range of a single payment of $77 to $409. This is estimated to be a total WTP of $15.1 billion to $79.3 billion for all individuals aged 18 to 64 in the United States, or $363.1 million to $1.91 billion per year in 2017 dollars. Respondents to the survey indicated that their support is driven primarily by increased protection from oil spills (85.8% deemed this very important or important), by increasing and protecting Alaska's biodiversity (84.3%), and preserving Alaska's beauty (84.2%). These results can help inform recent, current, and future debates about land use. President Obama significantly expanded land protections, while President Trump is continuing to scale back land protections, including opening up untouched land in Alaska in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. These results suggest that there are significant passive use values that should be considered when deciding whether to expand or reduce protection of land. Given that passive use values are significant, this suggests that the economic benefits must be large to tip a cost-benefit analysis in favor of reduced land protections.

Project description:To assess the spatial-temporal dynamics of primary succession following deglaciation in soil-dwelling lichen communities.European Alps (Austria, Switzerland and Italy).Five glacier forelands subjected to relevant glacier retreat during the last century were investigated. In each glacier foreland, three successional stages were selected at increasing distance from the glacier, corresponding to a gradient of time since deglaciation between 25 and 160 years. In each successional stage, soil-dwelling lichens were surveyed within five 1 × 1 m plots. In addition to a classical ecological framework, based on species richness and composition, we applied a functional approach to better elucidate community assembly mechanisms.A positive relationship was found between species richness and time since deglaciation indicating that richer lichen communities can be found at increasing terrain ageing. This pattern was associated with compositional shifts, suggesting that different community assemblages can be found along the successional stages. The analysis of ?-diversity revealed a significant nested pattern of species assemblages along the gradient (i.e. earlier successional stages hosted a subset of the species already established in older successional stages), while the turnover component was less relevant. Considering functional groups, we found contrasting patterns in relation to time since deglaciation: the incidence of species with a cyanobacterial photobiont and those reproducing by spores decreased, while that of species reproducing by vegetative propagules increased.This study reveals that community assembly patterns of soil-dwelling lichens in alpine glacier forelands are ruled by mechanisms of directional species accumulation and trait selection that involve a trade-off between different functional strategies. Functional traits that reflect the dispersal and adaptation capability of the species underpin the colonization success of soil-dwelling lichens in glacier forelands.

Dataset Information

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

Publications

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets