Message - 7th IAL Symposium

Lichen: from genome to ecosystem in a changing world
2B-P
(2B-P17) Submission ID: IAL0252-00001
ECOLOGY, DIVERSITY AND ALTITUDINAL DISTRIBUTION OF CORTICOLOUS LICHENS IN
MOUNT KENYA TROPICAL MONTANE FOREST
Kirika P. M. 1 , Mugambi G. K. 1 , Newton L. E. 2 , Ndiritu G. G. 1 , Lumbsch T. H. 3
1 Botany Department, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
2 Department of Plant and Microbial Sciences, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
3 Department of Botany, The Field Museum, Chicago, United States
Documenting the biological diversity is an obligation to all countries that have ratified the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD) with an aim of developing national strategies for its conservation and sustainable
use. However, for many tropical countries knowledge on the diversity and distribution of many groups of organisms
is still inadequate. In Kenya, lichens are among the most understudied groups with many regions of the
country waiting to be surveyed. The majority of undiscovered species are believed to occur in the tropics where
inventories are either incomplete or lacking for many regions. Kenya is estimated to have between 1,500 and
2,000 species of lichens. However, to date only about 700 species have been documented; of these 628 are
macrolichens as documented in the current edition of Macrolichens of East Africa and on an existing online
checklist. Therefore, more than half of the projected lichen diversity remains undiscovered with the majority of
the little known being crustose species. These predictions are evident in our preliminary data from the study of
Mt Kenya forests that aimed at comparing the diversity of lichens among forests types with contrasting moisture
and altitude gradients. Preliminary results indicate that various forest types in Mt. Kenya are rich in lichens.
From this study alone, more than 100 species have been added to the current checklist of Kenyan lichens. Ten
of these species are probably new to science and further work is ongoing to evaluate their identity. Initial analyses
of ecological data indicate higher diversity in the moist forest types than the drier forests. Conversely lichen
diversity was higher in mixed forests in lower and higher elevations, but interestingly less in middle elevation
mixed forests, as well as the bamboo zone. Mt Kenya forests are therefore endowed with diverse and rich lichen
communities that corroborate with its unique physiographic and environmental gradients.
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