Vertical distribution of epiphytic lichens onQuercus laurinaHumb. & Bonpl. in a remnant of cloud forest in the state of Veracruz, México

Abstract

In the tropics, corticolous lichen richness and cover tend to increase from the trunk base to the top of the crown of trees. In this study we calculated the total beta diversity of the lichen community along a vertical gradient on Quercus laurina in Mexican cloud forest. By comparing the richness and cover of the lichens by zone, we show that foliose and fruticose lichens are a minor component of the total lichen species richness, but have a higher cover than the crustose lichens. Five zones were identified along each phorophyte (n = 15) with a diameter at breast height >40 cm. A total of 92 species were identified. Of these, 38% were found only in a single zone, 51% were shared between the different zones and 11% occurred across all zones. Species richness and cover increased from the lowest to the highest zones of the phorophytes. Dissimilarity in species composition between the zones could be explained by species replacement. An indicator species analysis revealed that only a few species, e.g. Hypotrachyna vexans, H. cf. sublaevigata and Ramalina cf. sinaloensis prefer a particular zone. The results show that the lichen community associated with Quercus laurina phorophytes is highly diverse and suggest that species richness and cover are related to the zone and the various growth forms.

Lichen Community Assemblages and Functional Traits as Indicators of Vegetation Types in Central Mexico, Based on Herbarium Specimens

“…Beta diversity was used here to support the framework of lichen community comparisons across Mexican ecosystems, as it has been successfully applied to lichens in the discernment of the causes of beta diversity patterns (Nascimbene & Spitale 2017) along latitudinal, biogeographic, or ecological gradients (Ramírez-Peña 2019; Castillo-Campos et al 2019). Beta diversity pairwise comparisons among vegetation types resulted in high beta diversity values (≥ 0.8), coinciding with other studies that showed that different vegetation types sustain different lichen communities (Wolf 1993; Cáceres et al 2008; Nascimbene et al 2013).…”

“…Because the number of sites per vegetation type was unequal, gamma diversity was logarithmically transformed as follows: γ'= γ/100 × log (N) (where γ' is transformed gamma diversity, γ is original gamma diversity and N corresponds to the number of sites per vegetation type) (Cáceres et al 2008). Beta diversity was estimated as Beta total (β cc ), including beta replacement (β -3 ) and beta richness differences (β rich ) (Carvalho et al 2012). In addition, exclusive and shared species among vegetation types were counted and depicted in a Venn diagram, using the ggVennDiagram function of the ggplot R package (Wickham 2011).…”

“…One of the prevalent approaches to measure beta diversity is to split beta components into replacement and richness differences (Calderón-Patrón et al 2013;Heino et al 2019). Replacement (β -3 ) refers to changes in species identities (turnover), and richness differences (βrich) to the loss-gain in species richness between two sites (Carvalho et al 2012).…”

“…& Bompl. (Fagaceae), among other phorophytes has been documented (Pérez-Pérez et al 2008, 2015; Córdova-Chávez et al 2016; Ramirez-Péña 2019; Castillo-Campos et al 2019; León-González & Pérez-Pérez 2020). Lichen diversity has also been used to assess air quality and the impact of urbanization on the composition and abundance of lichen communities (Zambrano et al 2000; Pérez-Pérez & Guzmán 2015), to evaluate the effect of forest management on lichen richness and composition (Pérez-Pérez 2005; Pérez-Pérez et al 2011), and to recognize distributional patterns and phylogenetical structure of Parmeliaceae (Lücking et al 2016a).…”

Diversidad de líquenes epífitos en bosques de Quercus de Morelos, México

“…Se considera que su presencia y abundancia dependen en gran medida de la acidez de su corteza (Johansson et al 2010, Oran y Öztürk 2012) así como de su estructura, ya que es lisa cuando los forófitos son jóvenes y rugosa y fisurada conforme van madurando (Johansson et al 2009). Varios estudios alrededor del mundo dan cuenta de la importancia de Quercus en la diversidad de la comunidad liquénica, la cual puede estar conformada por especies generalistas, endémicas, raras, muy raras, indicadoras de continuidad de los bosques, especies amenazadas y algunas de ellas incluidas en listas rojas (Kubiak 2006, Johansson et al 2009, Esslinger y Pérez-Pérez 2010, Pérez-Pérez et al 2011, Córdova-Chávez et al 2016, Fałtynowicz et al 2018, Castillo-Campos et al 2019.…”