| Abstract Detail
Bryological and Lichenological Section/ABLS McCune, Bruce [1], Rosentreter, Roger [2]. Debunking the myth of slow lichens. WE measured rates of community change and demographic rates with ten years of annual remeasurement of individual lichens (N = 1463 individuals) in six permanent plots on an old, weathered fiberglass roof in an agricultural landscape in western Oregon, USA. Epiphytic lichen populations and communities showed surprisingly high rates of change. The community, composed mainly of nitrophilous species, including 12 lichen species and one bryophyte species, had 3.7 half changes of beta diversity over the 10-year period, ranging from 0.16 to 0.85 half changes in individual years. Numbers of individuals and areal cover were surprisingly stable at the community level. The overall birth rate only slightly exceeded the death rate, and areal growth rates approximately equaled areal losses. Lichen community trajectories of individual plots in species space followed roughly U-shaped trajectories, suggesting the action of at least two distinct drivers for community change, these drivers operating at different times. These drivers are unknown, but one appears to be parasitism at numerous infection points by an unknown nonlichenized radially spreading white fungal mycelium. -DU
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1 - Oregon State University, Department of Botany & Plant Pathology, 2082 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331-2902, USA
2 - USDI Bureau of Land Management, Boise, Idaho, 83709, USA
Keywords:
lichens
community dynamics
Oregon
lichen demography
lichen growth rates
beta diversity.
Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Sections
Session: 48-17
Location: Auditorium/Bell Memorial Union
Date: Tuesday, August 1st, 2006
Time: 12:30 PM
Abstract ID:45 |
