Hydrogen Sulphide and Epiphytic Lichen Vegetation: a Case Study on Mt. Amiata (Central Italy)

Abstract

A survey aimed at studying the effects of hydrogen sulphide (H 2 S) on epiphytic lichen vegetation was carried out at Acquapassante (Mt. Amiata, Central Italy). In 1992, lichen vegetation was surveyed using a sampling grid often units, on 18 chestnut trees along a transect from a chimney emitting H 2 S to c. 200 m in the direction of the prevailing winds. A Lichen Biodiversity Index (LBI) was calculated as the sum of the frequencies of all species present within the grid. The same survey was repeated five years later. Concentration Analysis was applied to describe the data structure, and Procrustes Analysis was used to verify the congruence between the ordinations of 1992 and 1997. The statistically significant linear and non-linear regressions found between environmental variables (distance of releves from the chimney, bark pH, lichen biomass of selected foliose and fruticose species, total sulphur content of Evernia prunastri, Hypogymnia physodes, Parmelia sulcata and Ramalina fastigiata) and the position of the releve points on the ordination axes suggest that species distribution along the transect is related to differences in H 2 S tolerance. However, some crustose species {Lecanora cf. conizaeoides, L. saligna and Scolkiosporum umbrinum) should be probably excluded from the computation of the LBI for monitoring purposes, as their optimum is in the immediate vicinity of the H 2 S source.£ 1999 The British Lichen Society

Lichenized fungi of a chestnut grove in Livari (Rumija, Montenegro)

“…The lichenized fungi of chestnut groves has been assessed in two regions of Switzerland, Bergell (Roth and Scheidegger 1997) and Chestenenweid at Lake Lucerne (Dietrich and Bürgi-Meyer 2011) and in the Italian regions of Piedmont (Matteucci et al 2010), the Western Alps to the Northern Apennines (Matteucci et al 2012), Tuscany (Loppi et al 1997), and the island of Elba (Lindacher and Pietschmann 1990). Castanea sativa trees as phorophytes have been used in monitoring studies dealing with hydrogen sulphide impact on lichen mycota (Loppi and Nascimbene 1998, Tretiach and Ganis 1999) and with trace elements (Loppi and Bonini 2000) in Tuscany. In Liguria, Giordani (2007) and Giordani et al (2009) have used Castanea sativa among other trees for different approaches in biomonitoring.…”