Research on the flora of green roofs has mainly focused on vascular plants. However, as green roofs age, they are spontaneously colonized by mosses and lichens, with mosses often becoming the dominant lifeform. There is thus a need to document and understand how moss and lichen communities assemble over time, and how these changes influence the provisioning of ecosystem services. To fill this knowledge gap, we analysed a chronosequence of 20 extensive green roofs, ranging from 0.4 to 28 years of … Read more... 

The rising prevalence of obesity necessitates natural metabolic interventions targeting key digestive enzymes. This study investigated functional properties of an extract from lichen Parmotrema perlatum, obtained via methanolic extraction (1:4 w/v, 4 °C), purified via liquid–liquid partitioning and vacuum drying (MLE-PP), with emphasis on lipase inhibition and secondary effects on α-amylase and α-glucosidase. MLE-PP showed dose-dependent, non-competitive lipase inhibition, with fluorescence … Read more... 

Hydrocarbon pollution from oil spills, traffic emissions, and industrial processes continues to be a significant global threat to biodiversity, soil quality, water quality, and human health. Lichens, mutualistic life forms between fungi and photobiont symbionts that lack a protective cuticle, are widely used as biomonitors because they integrate atmospheric inputs and accumulate organic and inorganic contaminants. However, evidence for lichen-based hydrocarbon biomonitoring is methodologically heterogeneous, … Read more... 

Litterfall plays a fundamental role in soil formation, the maintenance of soil fertility, and nutrient cycling. The objective of study was to characterize tree litterfall in Scots pine forests located in the northeastern part of the East European Plain and to assess its relationship with stand structural attributes. Long-term investigations were conducted across Scots pine forests representing three distinct types: Lichen, Myrtillus and Sphagnum using litter traps. Throughout the observation period, … Read more... 

Dead trees provide discrete habitat patches in which patch quality changes gradually due to wood decomposition. Although in most cases these patches persist for not more than a few decades, in some ecosystems deadwood decomposition and the consequent change in habitat patch quality can be a centuries-long process, potentially leading to dynamics of deadwood-associated communities taking place over a similar time scale. We studied the dynamics of lignicolous lichen communities on snags in near-natural … Read more...