Lichen communities as a multiscale correlative indicator of elevational and land use-land cover gradients in the Himalayas

Abstract

Elevation and land use/ land cover (LULC) plays an important role in the diversity of lichens in the Himalayas. The elevation gradients and LULC can be remotely assessed using remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS). The current study was done in the Chopta-Tungnath landscape in the Kedarnath wildlife sanctuary, western Himalaya, India. Digital elevation modelling of the study area was done using shuttle radar topography mission data (SRTM-DEM) processed in Esri ArcGIS® ArcMAPTM 10.5, to assess the elevation gradient of the study area and selection of four lichen sampling sites. The LULC maps of the study area were prepared using Landsat 8 and Google Earth Pro 7.3.2.5776 imagery processed using LeicaTM ERDAS IMAGINE® 9.2. An elevation gradient of 2750 m to 3703m was recorded by SRTM-DEM. The LULC analysis resulted in five LULC classes of which the four sampling sites fall in the 3 LULC classes. The principal component analysis (PCA), used to analyse the lichen communities along the RS-GIS recognized LULC classes. The study found lichen communities to be a proxy to the LULC classes in the Himalayas with clear gradients of growth forms and habitat subsets along the increasing elevation gradient.

Species of lichenized fungi associated with different land uses in the Luján district (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina)

“…cambios en el uso del suelo. Existen numerosos estudios que relacionan la composición de comunidades de hongos liquenizados con diferentes tipos de usos de suelo (Stofer et al, 2006;Pinho et al, 2012;Chuquimarca et al, 2019;Filippini et al, 2020;Rai et al, 2021). Los diferentes tipos de usos del suelo generan distintos efectos sobre las comunidades de hongos liquenizados.…”