The increasing demand for forest-derived bio-fuel may decrease the amount of dead wood and hence also the amount of available substrate for saproxylic ( = dead-wood dependent) organisms. Cut stumps constitute a large portion of dead wood in managed boreal forests. The lichen flora of such stumps has received little interest. Therefore, we investigated which lichens that occur on stumps in young...

Chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases are characterized by an enhanced state of oxidative stress, which may result from the overproduction of reactive species and/or a decrease in antioxidant defenses. The search for new chemical entities with antioxidant profile is still thus an emerging field on ongoing interest. Due to the lack of reviews co...

Air pollution and climate change are threats to maintaining ecological health of protected areas. Protected Area managers require a meaningful way to measure impacts of these threats. Lichens provide a relevant, sensitive and measurable indicator for long-term monitoring. Hundreds of studies have linked lichen communities to air quality, and several long-term lichen monitoring programs in Europ...

Extremes in δ15N values in mangrove tissues and lichens (range =+4 to −22‰) were measured from a mangrove forest ecosystem located on Twin Cays, offshore islands in Belize, Central America. The N isotopic compositions and concentrations of NH+4 /NH3 in porewater, rainwater, and atmospheric ammonia, and the δ15N of lichens, mangrove leaves, roots, stems, and wood were examined to study the bioge...

Although lichens (lichen-forming fungi) play an important role in the ecological integrity of many vulnerable landscapes, only a minority of lichen-forming fungi have been barcoded out of the currently accepted ∼18 000 species. Regular Sanger sequencing can be problematic when analyzing lichens since saprophytic, endophytic, and parasitic fungi live intimately admixed, resulting in low-quality ...

Lichens are symbiotic associations of fungi with microalgae and/or cyanobacteria, which are considered among the slowest growing organisms, with strong tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. There are about 400 genera and 1600 species of lichens and those belonging to the Usnea genus comprise about 360 of these species. Usnea lichens have been used since ancient times as dyes, cosmetics...

Sixteen epilithic lichen samples (13 species), collected from seven locations in Northern and Southern Victoria Land in Antarctica, were investigated for the presence of black fungi. Thirteen fungal strains isolated were studied by both morphological and molecular methods. Nuclear ribosomal 18S gene sequences were used together with the most similar published and unpublished sequences of fungi ...

Lichens are reputedly slow growing and become unhealthy or die in response to supplements of the usual limiting resources, such as water and nitrogen. We found, however, that the tripartite cyanobacterial lichen Lobaria pulmonaria doubled in annual biomass growth after a single 20-minute immersion in a phosphorus solution (K2HPO4), as compared to controls receiving no supplemental phosphorus. T...

Decreasing quality of forest habitats is among the major factors leading to a loss of epiphytic lichen diversity. However, there is little information about how this factor influences the diversity of terricolous lichens, which do not grow over living trees and could be less susceptible to such disturbances. In this work we describe the genetic diversity of Peltigera terricolous cyanolichens an...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to investigate in vitro antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer activity of the acetone extracts of the lichens Cladonia furcata, Lecanora atra and Lecanora muralis. METHODS Antioxidant activity was evaluated by five separate methods: free radical scavenging, superoxide anion radical scavenging, reducing power, determination of total phenolic compounds an...