DNA barcoding aids in generating a preliminary checklist of the lichens and allied fungi of Calvert Island, British Columbia: Results from the 2018 Hakai Terrestrial BioBlitz.

Background: Bioblitzes are a tool for the rapid appraisal of biodiversity and are particularly useful in remote and understudied regions and for understudied taxa. Lichens are an example of an often overlooked group, despite being widespread in virtually all terrestrial ecosystems and having many important ecological functions. New information: We report the lichens and allied fungi collected during the 2018 terrestrial bioblitz conducted on Calvert Island on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada. We identified 449 specimens belonging to 189 species in 85 genera, increasing the total number of species known from Calvert Island to 194, and generated Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) sequences for 215 specimens from 121 species. Bryoriafurcellata, Chaenothecopsislecanactidis and C.nigripunctata were collected for the first time in British Columbia. We also found Pseudocyphellariarainierensis, which is listed as Special Concern on the federal Species at Risk Act, and other rarely reported species in British Columbia including Opegraphasphaerophoricola, Protomicarealimosa, Raesaeneniahuuskonenii and Sareadifformis. We demonstrate that DNA barcoding improves the scope and accuracy of expert-led bioblitzes by facilitating the detection of cryptic species and allowing for consistent identification of chemically and morphologically overlapping taxa. Despite the spatial and temporal limitations of our study, the results highlight the value of intact forest ecosystems on the Central Coast of British Columbia for lichen biodiversity, education and conservation.

Providing Scale to a Known Taxonomic Unknown-At Least a 70-Fold Increase in Species Diversity in a Cosmopolitan Nominal Taxon of Lichen-Forming Fungi.

Robust species delimitations provide a foundation for investigating speciation, phylogeography, and conservation. Here we attempted to elucidate species boundaries in the cosmopolitan lichen-forming fungal taxon Lecanora polytropa. This nominal taxon is morphologically variable, with distinct populations occurring on all seven continents. To delimit candidate species, we compiled ITS sequence data from populations worldwide. For a subset of the samples, we also generated alignments for 1209 single-copy nuclear genes and an alignment spanning most of the mitochondrial genome to assess concordance among the ITS, nuclear, and mitochondrial inferences. Species partitions were empirically delimited from the ITS alignment using ASAP and bPTP. We also inferred a phylogeny for the L. polytropa clade using a four-marker dataset. ASAP species delimitations revealed up to 103 species in the L. polytropa clade, with 75 corresponding to the nominal taxon L. polytropa. Inferences from phylogenomic alignments generally supported that these represent evolutionarily independent lineages or species. Less than 10% of the candidate species were comprised of specimens from multiple continents. High levels of candidate species were recovered at local scales but generally with limited overlap across regions. Lecanora polytropa likely ranks as one of the largest species complexes of lichen-forming fungi known to date.

Lichen communities along a pollution gradient 40 years after decommissioning of a Cu-Ni smelter.

Pollution control initiatives in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, resulted in the decommissioning of the Coniston Smelter in 1972. The last assessment of the effects from the smelter on the surrounding lichen biota was in 1990, which showed an overall improvement in richness following these initiatives, but still few species were present close to the smelter. We examined five sites along this gradient to determine if this pattern is still present on the landscape. Sixty-four macrolichen species in 15 genera were found. Lichen richness and Shannon diversity increased at all sites, but the increase was no longer linear with distance from the smelter. There was no significant difference between lichen richness and diversity at sites at increasing distances from the smelter. We show that past air pollution from the Coniston Smelter is no longer restricting lichen growth and development in the Greater Sudbury area as it was historically. Lichen populations are, therefore, now shaped by other environmental variables.

Lichen conservation in heavily managed boreal forests.

Lichens are an important component of the boreal forest, where they are long lived, tend to accumulate in older stands, and are a major food source for the threatened woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). To be fully sustainable, silvicultural practices in the boreal forest must include the conservation of ecological integrity. Dominant forest management practices, however, have short-term negative effects on lichen diversity, particularly the application of herbicides. To better understand the long-term effects of forest management, we examined lichen regeneration in 35 mixed black spruce (Picea mariana) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana) forest stands across northern Ontario to determine recovery following logging and postharvest silvicultural practices. Our forest stands were 25-40 years old and had undergone 3 common sivilcultural treatments that included harvested and planted; harvested, planted, and treated with N-[phosphonomethyl] glycine (glyphosate); and harvested, planted, and treated with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). Forest stands with herbicide treatments had lower lichen biomass and higher beta and gamma diversity than planted stands that were not treated chemically or control stands. In northwestern Ontario, planted stands that were not treated chemically had significantly greater (p < 0.05) alpha diversity than stands treated with herbicides or control stands. Our results show that common silvicultural practices do not emulate natural disturbances caused by wildfires in the boreal forest for the lichen community. We suggest a reduction in the amount of chemical application be considered in areas where lichen biomass is likely to be high and where the recovery of woodland caribou is an objective.