Due to the rapid increase in the novel coronavirus virulence, the entire world implemented the practice of lockdown along with the constraint of human movement. The obligation of quarantine halted most of the commercial and industrial movement that prominently disturbed the distinct key environmental parameters directly associated with the plant’s and animal’s health conditions. In this regard, the research aims to study the sudden shut-off of vehicular activity impact on the naturally growing … Read more... 

Lichen woodlands (LWs) are persistent unproductive areas of the Canadian boreal forests whose afforestation may potentially remove significant amounts of anthropogenic C from the atmosphere. The choice of species to be planted is nevertheless uncertain given the particular pedoclimatic conditions prevailing in this habitat as well as the rapidly changing climate at northern latitudes. In this study, we assessed the survival and the growth rates of four boreal coniferous species in two LWs with contrasting … Read more... 

Purpose Biocrust communities, which are impor- tant regulators of multiple ecosystem functions in drylands, are highly sensitive to climate change. There is growing evidence of the negative impacts of warming on the performance of biocrust constituents like lichens in the field. Here, we aim to understand the physiological basis behind this pattern. Methods Using a unique manipulative climate change experiment, we monitored every 30 minutes and for 9 months the chlorophyll a fluorescence and microclimatic … Read more... 

Despite recent advances in the ecology of lichens from a community perspective, much remains unknown at the species level particularly in arid regions. In this context, the current study investigated the differential effects of five lichen species dominating South Mediterranean arid ecosystem (Diploschistes diacapsis (Ach.) Lumbsch, Squamarina cartilaginea (With.) P. James, Fulgensia bracteata (Hoffm.) Ra ̈senen, Psora decipiens (Hedw.) Hoffm and Endocarpon pusillum Hedw.) on soil properties as … Read more... 

Lichens are outstanding examples of fungal symbioses that form long-lived structures, the lichen thalli, in which a multiplicity of other microorganisms are hosted. Among these, microfungi seem to establish diverse trophic relationships with their lichen hosts. The most specialised of these fungi are the parasitic lichenicolous fungi, of which the diversity has hardly been explained as a proxy for the diversity of lichen species. Here, we used an exemplar dataset of a well-studied alpine lichen community … Read more...