Message - 7th IAL Symposium

The 7 th International Association for Lichenology Symposium 2012
(1A-P10) Submission ID: IAL0138-00001
CAUCASUS BIOSPHERE RESERVE (WESTERN CAUCASUS, RUSSIA) AS A POTENTIAL
VALUABLE HOTSPOT OF LICHEN DIVERSITY IN CAUCASUS AND RUSSIA
Urbanavichyus G. P. 1 , Urbanavichene I. 2
1 Laboratory of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Institute of The Industrial Ecology Problems of the North, Russian Academy
of Sciences, Apatity, Murmansk, Russia
2 Laboratory of Lichenology and Bryology, Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
The Caucasus Mountains are one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as one of the richest
regions of Russia in this aspect. However, the Caucasus is not recognized yet as a hotspot of lichen species
diversity, because the lichen flora of the Caucasus is still incompletely known. There are 1,119 species mentioned
for the Northern Caucasus in the Russian lichen checklist (2010), which comprise 33% of total lichen
flora of Russia. UNESCO-MAB Caucasus Biosphere Reserve (Kavkazskiy Zapovednik) is situated in the western
Caucasus, which is the core of the Western Caucasus World Heritage Site. The area of the Reserve covers
about 2,800 sq km of various natural ecosystems, which are about 80% of whole Great Caucasus ecosystem
types. There are distinct ecological and altitudinal belts–from subtropics on the eastern Black Sea coast (30 m
alt.) up to glacial and nival habitats (3,300-3,360 m alt.), with unique temperate broadleaf and mixed rainforests
with annual precipitation over 2,500 mm in the most of western part of the Caucasus. High level of species endemism
is character for the whole Caucasus region. Our study report 745 species of lichens and lichenicolous
fungi for the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve (more than 100 are additions to the Northern Caucasus list). However
our investigations covered only small part of the Reserve. Anyway we state the Caucasus Reserve has
one of the richest lichen flora Reserves in Russia as compared to Pechoro-Ilych Reserve (889 sp.); Baikalskiy
(719 sp.) and Laplandskiy (612 sp.). More then 130 lichens from the Caucasian Reserve are not known in other
Russian Reserves and 430 species are not known in other Reserve areas of Caucasus. Nevertheless, we suppose
that the actual number of species is much higher: about 1,200 lichen species could be registrated in the
reserve and over 2,500 species for the whole lichen flora of the Caucasus. Therefore the Caucasus Reserve
is of critical value for the total Caucasian lichen diversity conservation. The rich lichen diversity in a mountainforested
area clearly justifies a more detailed lichen exploration in the region.
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