Lichens: Nature’s Indicators of Environmental Health

By Claudia Moore

Timing is everything when it comes to conservation. TLC and its many community partners demonstrate how, with the right people in the right places at the right times, good things happen.

Take, for example, the recent “coincidental” alignment of members of the Wake County Nature Preserve Partnership (“WakeNature” for short), TLC, and an ecology-conscious student who bumped into a candidate in the North Carolina Botanic Garden Native Plant Studies certificate program. Though the unlikely “stars” of this event are lichens, Hollywood couldn’t have scripted this encounter and its potential benefits any better. The stage for this winning cast is the richly diverse and thus precious Marks Creek priority area.

When asked how he was tapped to conduct TLC’s lichen inventory at Marks Creek, Gary Perlmutter, associate at the UNC Herbarium, laughs.

“I was working the booth for the NC Division of Air Quality at the Earth Day event in Raleigh this April. I’d hung a poster about the city-wide survey on the effects of air pollution on trees in Raleigh I’d just completed. Nate Osborn, a NC State student, walked up and said, ‘Hey! You’re the lichen guy! I know an area that needs a survey!’ He told me about WakeNature with TLC and how they wanted to do a lichen inventory at Marks Creek.” After meeting with representatives of both groups, Perlmutter was invited to conduct the lichen study at Marks Creek.

Though his background is zoology and environmental monitoring, Perlmutter recalls the start of his fascination with lichens. “I remember the exact day. I was on my way to work when I stopped to look at something growing on the trunk of a tree in the park. Good thing I had the magnifying glass on my Swiss Army knife. When I looked at the complexity of the lichen, I was struck by the total alien-ness of this organism. At the time, I was working on a plant study of a species of sumac that I caught in the act of evolution. But I was pretty much ‘wowed’ as I started to learn more about lichens and decided that this would be the field of study for the rest of my life.”

Excitement over the biodiversity in the Piedmont and the location of three world-class universities in the area were key factors in Perlmutter’s decision to move from California to North Carolina. Participation in the Great Smoky Mountain All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (see www.atbi.org) fueled his growing interest in the floristics and ecology of lichens.

The fact that so much is unknown about lichens and thus, the potential for the discovery of new species, along with the fact that lichens are important indicators of air quality and environmental health led Perlmutter to the North Carolina Botanic Garden’s Native Plant Studies certificate program in 2004. In May, he submitted the thesis that took five years to complete titled Lichen Inventory of the North Carolina Piedmont.

Gary Perlmutter examines a lichen from Marks Creek.

About the lichen survey he’s currently conducting at Marks Creek, Perlmutter says, “The natural ecosystem at Marks Creek contains species that might be vulnerable if they’re not protected. Specifically, these are located in the granitic flatrock habitats. Flatrocks are special habitats where bedrock is exposed and colonized by a lichen flora that’s not found in the surrounding forests. It would be a tragedy to lose a bunch of species we didn’t even know we’ve lost. This is the reason it’s so important to do an inventory of an area like the one at Marks Creek.”

Perlmutter projects that the Marks Creek area will reveal great biodiversity in the lichens of this part of Wake County. This promise of such biodiversity is seen as a positive sign because a decline in the number of species in any given habitat reflects environmental threats. Perlmutter projects that there may be as many as 200 species, a number that exceeds the 150 species found in an inventory done at Umstead State Park. Perlmutter reports fellow lichenologists are excited about the possibility that new species of cyanolichens exist on granitic flatrocks like those at the Marks Creek site. In addition, Perlmutter will be looking in deeply forested areas that may harbor other pollution-sensitive lichens.

When asked about the completion date for the inventory, Perlmutter laughs again and says, “I hope to be done with fieldwork by hunting season!” On a more serious note, Perlmutter adds, “This inventory is important because it will help assess the environmental quality of the area. Though the recession has supposedly slowed growth in the region, we know how fast it is happening. Lichens are excellent indicators of environmental quality because they are sensitive to air pollution. The Marks Creek lichen study will provide a baseline so we can track changes brought by increased growth in the area and the associated effects of air pollution as well as possible effects of global warming.”

Copyright © 2006-2009, Triangle Land Conservancy Last updated on 01/07/2009.