Ecological, Social and Commercial Role of Lichens in India with ...

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Acdemia Arena 2010, Supplement 0201 http://www.sciencepub.net Community studies can be carried out at various spatial scales. Most of the investigations on lichen diversity have been descriptive and have concentrated on regional and global scales (Groombridge 1992; Heywood 1995; Gaston 1996; Galloway 1996). The current focus such studies is shifting from these higher scales to locally manageable landscapes as land use decisions and management policies are most often implemented at these latter scales (Ricklefs and Schluter 1993; Nagendra and Gadgil 1999; Negi 1999). Moreover, floristic inventories particularly of lower plants suffer from lack of uniform field methods. This has partly hindered progress on long term monitoring of biological diversity and its conservation (Negi and Gadgil 1997; Negi 1999). Formulating proper methodology for documenting floristic diversity with ecological correlates should therefore be a prerequisite for inventorying, periodical monitoring and conservation of bio resources. Number of specie and any other higher ranks of taxonomic organization in a site (species richness or alpha diversity) and their compositional change across different habitat types (species turnover or beta diversity) within a landscape are important parameters of biodiversity that have wide applications such as environmental monitoring and conservation evaluation (Magurran 1988; Pressey et al 1994; Negi 1999). Singh and Bujarbarua (2002) presented note on the lichen diversity of Assam; Singh et al. (2004) provided a comprehensive account on the endemic lichens of India. Balaji and Hariharan (2004) studied the lichen diversity and its distribution pattern in tropical dry evergreen forest of Guindy National Park (GNP), Chennai. The quantitative ecological data shows the occurrence of 31 species of lichens of fewer than 26 genera of 19 families and 9 fungal orders. These quantitative ecological data were recorded from 219 individuals of phorophytes in a total 264 samples, out of which 235 samples were taken from trees, 27 from shrubs and 2 from lianas of ≥3 cm gbh. Strongest correlation emerged between tree density and host tree diversity of lichen distribution. Species like Arthopyrenia alboatra, Parmotrema saccatilobum, Strigula elegans, Tapellaria sp. and, Verrucaria species were found to be narrowly distributed in the park and specific to a single host. Satya et al. (2005) reported that Shorea robusta tree is a suitable phorophyte for the luxuriant growth and development of crustose lichens. Out of the 64 lichen species recorded from Shorea robusta trees in various forest sites of India, 42 species fall under the crustose lichens. Air pollution and climate changes are threats to maintaining ecological health of protected areas. Lichens provide a relevant, sensitive and measurable indicator of long term monitoring. The 21
Acdemia Arena 2010, Supplement 0201 http://www.sciencepub.net International treaty, Agenda 21 emphasize regular monitoring through sampling and other techniques, the components of biodiversity especially paying particular attention to those requiring urgent conservation measures. Thus, biological diversity is now increasingly recognized as a vital parameter to asses global and local environmental changes and sustainability of developmental activities. The development of information on the lichen ecology is widely scattered often in many inaccessible literature sources. Seaward (1977) complied the knowledge on lichens in relation to physical and biological component of their environment. Upreti and Chaterjee (1999a) studied the distribution of epiphytic lichens on Quercus and Pinus trees in Pithoragarh and Almora districts of Kumaun Himalayas. Quercus semecarpifolia exhibits the dominance of lichen species represented by 25 species while Quercus leucotrichophora and Quercus floribunda have 20 and 12 species respectively. All tree species have dominance of Parmelioid species. The cultivated tree of Pinus roxburghii show occurrence of 19 species of lichens. Upreti and Chaterjee (1999b) also studied the epiphytic lichen flora of Quercus and Pinus trees in three forest sites of Pithoragarh district, Quercus leucotrichophora at altitude between 2700-3000m has 24 species while Quercus dilatata at the same elevation has only 15 species of lichen. Both the tree species have dominance of Usenea and Ramalina species. Quercus leucotrichophora at lower elevation between 1600-1800m has 14 species of lichens. Pinus roxburghii between altitudes of 15001600m has 21 epiphytic species in the area. Both Quercus and Pinus trees at lower elevation exhibit dominance of Parmelioid lichens. Nayaka and Upreti (2002) studied the lichen communities of Sharavati River Basin, Karnataka, while Srivastava (2006) studied the Great Himalaya National Park, Himanchal Pradesh. Divakar and Upreti (2005) and Kumar (2008) proposed the Chopta-Tunganath, Saryu River Valley in Pindari Glacier (Bageshwar district), Nain Singh top en route Milam Glacier, Chaubatia to Ranikhet (Almora district) and Mussoorie Hills (Dehra Dun district) of Uttarakhand areas as the “Lichen Sanctuary” owing of their rich, unique and some endemic lichen taxa. Negi (2000) studied total 3211 colonies of microlichens from twelve 50m X 1m plots distributed across four microhabitat (vegetation) types between 1500-3700m in Chopta-Tunganath landscape of Garhwal Himalaya. This study revealed occurrence of 85 species, 15 genera falling under 13 families. Lobaria retigera stood as a broad niche generalist species with moderate levels of abundance in all the three major microhabitats, viz. rock, soil and wood across 83% of all the plots sampled, whereas Umblicaria indica occurring on rock substrates. Heterodermia incana and 22
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