Lichen Responses to Disturbance: Clues for Biomonitoring Land-use Effects on Riparian Andean Ecosystems

Leiddy Chuquimarca,Carlos Iñiguez-Armijos,Fernando P Gaona,Ángel Benítez

doi:10.3390/d11050073

Leiddy Chuquimarca, Carlos Iñiguez-Armijos + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/d11050073

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Journal: Diversity	Publication Date: May 5, 2019
Citations: 24	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

Abstract

The transformation of natural ecosystems due to anthropogenic land use is considered one of the main causes of biodiversity loss. Lichens, due to their poikilohydric nature, are very sensitive to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, lichen communities have been widely used as bioindicators of climatic and environmental changes. In this study, we evaluated how the species richness and community composition of epiphytic lichens respond to land-use intensity in riparian ecosystems of the Andes in southern Ecuador. Additionally, we evaluate how the richness of six functional traits (photobiont type, growth form, and reproductive strategy) changed across the different land-use intensity. We selected 10 trees in twelve sites for a total de 120 trees, equally divided into four riparian land-use intensities (forest, forest-pasture, pasture and urban). We recorded a total of 140 lichen species. Species richness was highest in the forest sites and decreased towards more anthropogenic land uses. Lichen community composition responded to land-use intensity, and was explained by microclimate variables (e.g., precipitation, percentage forested area) and distance to the forest. Richness of functional traits of lichens also differed significantly among the four land-use intensity and decreased from forests to urban land-use. Taxonomic diversity and functional traits can be effectively applied as bioindicators to assess and monitor the effects of land-use changes in the riparian ecosystems of tropical montane regions.

Highlights

Ecosystem transformation due to anthropogenic disturbances such as land-use change is considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss [1,2,3,4]
generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) showed that lichen richness was lower in land uses with more intensity, i.e., forest-pasture, pasture and urban sites had a negative correlation with lichen richness
correspondence analysis (CCA) indicated that precipitation, distance to forest and % forest were important factors to distinguish the taxonomic composition of the epiphytic lichen community among land uses (Figure 3b; Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Ecosystem transformation due to anthropogenic disturbances such as land-use change is considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss [1,2,3,4]. Epiphytic lichens are an essential component of tropical humid forests because of their important role in water and nutrient cycles [13] They are key organisms facilitating crucial ecosystem processes [10,14,15]. They lack an active regulation of the loss and absorption of water [16], which in turn increases their sensitivity to environmental disturbances [17,18] For these reasons, several biological traits of lichens as such as photobiont type, growth, reproduction, and development can be affected by environmental changes [19,20,21,22]

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