Lichens of the Sierra Nevada have been little studied.[1] A lichen is a composite organism consisting of a fungus (the mycobiont) and a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont or phycobiont) growing together in a symbiotic relationship.
One classification of Sierra Nevada lichens is according to functional groups, by the National Park Service.[1] These functional groups overlap with each other. These include forage lichens (eaten by animals), nitrogen fixers (can take nitrogen molecules from the air and attach them to other molecules), acidophiles (acid loving lichens), wolf lichens, crustose lichens on rock, crustose lichens on bark and wood, biotic soil crusts, aquatic lichens, other green algal macrolichens, and pin lichens (calicoids)”.[1]: 2 These functional groups overlap.[1]: 4 In this article, we include wolf lichens as a subsection of crustose lichens growing on wood.
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La biblioteca del bosque y el Museo del Prado
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From Travels In Alaska by John Muir - FULL AudioBook - Naturalism & Outdoor Adventure
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Walden (4 of 9) (audiobook)
Transcription
This is the core or heart of “The Library of the Forest”. Located here in Madrid, in Pinar del Rey, which is one of the highest points in Madrid. The book that lies at the origin of this entire project, in which I have been engaged now for more than 26 years, first began in the winter of 1986 after a snowfall that left me cut off for four days. I produced my first book-box that would lead on to the 1,133 that now comprise “The Library of the Forest” series. At the outset they were very rustic and really very basic. I was working with very few means and materials. The materials were supplied to me by nature and this first book consists of three fragmented branches of wild pine from the Valle de la Fuenfría, which is the centre of my world, my artistic centre, located in the Sierra de Guadarrama. They are three small pine branches with a piece of glass and a wooden circle. These small fragments and this small box is the origin of these 1,133 books. It is my life project, on which I am still engaged and which provides me with a great deal of knowledge of and happiness. This is “Book number 1,114”, which is the start of the sequence or cycle of works on the trees that surround and protect the Museo del Prado. Its title is “Cedrus libani illustris” and it is made with pieces of bark from the two cedars that flank the statue of Velázquez on the Paseo del Prado at the Velázquez Entrance to the Museum. This is one of a series of photographic images transferred to organic paper that will lead us on to the box. The previous page is a natural embossed relief print of the bark and branch fragments from these cedars. The next one, “Book number 1,115”, is entitled “Gallery of the enlightened cedars”, referring to the botanical expedition ordered by Charles III when he returned from Naples. The streets in Naples were embellished with cedars of Lebanon and when he came to Madrid, Charles III commissioned an expedition to be undertaken in order to bring back cedars and have them planted in Madrid. These specimens now in front of the Prado are descended from those original ones. In the Parque de la Fuente del Berro there is another of the cedars that Charles III had brought over, for which reason they are considered trees of the Enlightenment period. Here I have created a gallery consisting of pages made with rubbings and embossing from fragments of those trees. I have also combined the fragments here here with some green stalactites in the background which are malachite ones. Another special book that I particularly like is “number 1,130”, entitled “The feathered hackberry”. This hackberry is located between the Murillo Entrance and the Paseo del Prado. It is another very old specimen, like the ones inside the Botanical Gardens. I have transformed it into my room in the Prado or in a nest near the Prado, so in this photo you see the hackberry with the corner of the Prado in the background just visible. The last page consists of rubbings from the trunk made with bark paper from Nepal and with prints of feathers specifically feathers from a golden pheasant. This one was in Charles III’s menagerie. In fact, the oldest trees around the Prado are the hornbeams (carpinus betulus L), which are located next to the statue of Goya opposite the Museum’s Goya Entrance. My “Book number 1,131”, entitled “Doorway to Goya” consists of a series of pieces of bark which, due to their age, have these fractures or cavities in the trunk. This page is made with some burned lines and some pencil drawings of the hole in one of the pieces of old bark from this hornbeam. It is also accompanied by a series of fragments, including these small box leaves from the garden on Ruiz de Alarcón, together with a piece of bark that comes from a "platanus officinalis", located next to the crypt where Goya is buried in the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida. This focus on Goya led me to undertake a search, during which I found what I call “Goya’s tree”, very close to the Quinta del Sordo where Goya always walked. It is even said that he painted while sitting under its shade. I found this tree on a mound in the Casa de Campo where it was moved to as it is considered a historic specimen. We thus have a platanus officinalis that is more than three hundred years old and which Goya came very close to. In this photo you can see its appearance now. For me, this is a state that evokes Goya’s dark universes and apparitions, where I allowed myself to collect various fragments for the composition of this book-box. You can see how this page has a small bonfire as an offering. The box thus consists of these fragments and this plume, which looms out of the darkness and is made of golden eagle feathers. Here we have “Book number 1,072”. I selected this one to establish a dialogue with the wall that I believe is the most woody and forest-like, the most mountainous, to be found in the Museo del Prado and the one where I breathe my own forest. This book is entitled “Black forest” and consists of four pages that use photographs to illustrate the place where I collected these particles of landscape on a night with a full moon, on a cliff side in the San Mauricio natural park with its stormy torrents and lakes, in the province of Lérida. The box is made up of fragments of this dark landscape and this cliff face. Here we have needles from a black pine, resin, pieces of bark and wood, lichen and a pine cone from a "pinus uncinata". Although it wasn’t intentional, in the end a series of formal coincidences established themselves between my book and the wall in the Prado, like this wooden structure from an old, dried-out pine that links up visually with this rock formation here on the right that is almost identical to it. As I say, that was not intentional and I noticed it later, “a posteriori”, when looking at the installation of my work. These are the works linked to the Museo del Prado project and to its protective forest.
Forage lichens
Forage lichens includes hanging, hairlike species that serve as food for animals [1] and humans, including by Native Americans.[2][3]
Wila (Bryoria fremontii) is the most important species in this group.[1] It is notable for its palatability because it lacks defensive chemicals commonly found in other lichens that protect them against being eaten (herbivory).[1] It becomes more increasingly more rare moving south in the Sierras.[1]
It is one of the only food sources in the harsh winters of the Sierras, including for the northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) and Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii).[1] Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) may also depend on it.[1]
Nitrogen fixers
Lichens with cyanobacteria as a symbiotic partner (cyanolichens) convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms usable by plants and animals (nitrogen fixation).[1] They are common in the relatively warm and dry Sierras, though less common than in cool oceanic climates.[1] They are typically found on mossy boulders, rotting logs, trunks of hardwoods, and bases of trees in general.[1] Common genera include Peltigera, Fuscopannaria, Collema, and Leptogium.[1]
Crustose lichens
Crustose lichens grow flat against the surface that the colonies are growing on (substrate), typically rocks or wood. The plant grows tightly appressed to the substrate, and is very close to the substrates at all points, forming a biological layer. There is overlap between crustose lichens growing on rock with those growing on wood, as well as with lichens listed in other sections of this article.
Among the most brightly colored Sierra Nevada crustose lichens are the bright yellow Pleopsidium flavum and Pleopsidium chlorophanum, and the orange Caloplaca trachyphylla.[4]
On rock
Crustose lichen communities are part of the aesthetic appeal to visitors of Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park.[1]: 8 They form dark vertical drip-like stripings along drainage tracks in the rock faces, resulting in Native Americans giving the name "Face of a Young Woman Stained with Tears" to Half Dome.[1]: 8 Their tight adherence to the rocks give them the appearance of being "painted" on, and up close they appear as intricate multicolored patchwork mosaics.[1]: 8 They often completely cover the exposed surface of the rock.[1]: 8 They add to rock weathering.[1]: 8 These crustose rock lichens lack rhizenes and a lower cortex (lichen).[1]: 8
The dark vertical stains along the drainage tracks are either mosses, or of four color types of lichen, each with a slightly different color. Appearing black from a distance, but brown up close, is the abundant Lecidea atrobrunnea.[1]: 8 Also abundant in these black-from-a-distance stripes are Dimelaena thysanota and dark gray Rhizocarpon species.[1]: 8 More gray appearing vertical stripes have Aspecilia species and Koerberia sonomensis as major components.[1]: 8 Staurothele areolata and other species of Staurothele and Verrucaria appear dark brown closer up.[1]: 8 The blackest of the black are likely Nostoc species, containing cyanobacteria.[1]: 8 Mixed in are green to dark green stripes that contain mosses.[1]: 8
Nitrophilic (nitrogen loving) yellow Candelariella species can be found on rocks where birds perch and drop their high nitrogen containing waste products, as well as in drainage cracks with higher than normal nitrogen loads.[1]: 9
Fruticose lichens
Wolf lichens
Wolf lichens in the genus Letharia are the most conspicuous in the Sierra parks because of their brilliant fluorescent yellow or chartreuse coloration.[1]: 7 They are typified by Letharia vulpina (vulpina derives from "fox", not wolf).[1]: 7 They are mostly absent at lower elevations, and can then be found on conifer trunks and branches, sometimes completely covering them.[1]: 7 Letharia is the only abundant fruticose lichen in the Sierran parks, and composes the bulk of the biomass in Sequoia groves, and many other types of groves.[1]: 8 Estimates have Letharia species as contributing from 50% to 95% of the total macrolichen biomass in some stands.[1]: 7
It contains toxins (e.g., vulpinic acid) to many herbivores and microbes, although there are mixed reports on actual consumption.[1]: 8 It is the vulpinic acid that gives it the brilliant yellow color.[1]: 8
Pin lichens (calicoid lichens)
Pin lichens, or calicoid lichens, are lichens with a crustose thallus and tiny fruiting bodies with stalks that resemble the head of a pin, whereby the name "pin lichen".[1]: 12
Ecological interactions
About 20 Sierra Nevada bird species are known to use lichens in nests construction.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj McCune, B.; Grenon, J.; Martin, E.; Mutch, L.S.; Martin, E.P. (Mar 2007). "Lichens in relation to management issues in the Sierra Nevada national parks". North American Fungi. 2: 1–39. doi:10.2509/pnwf.2007.002.003.
- ^ McCune, Bruce. "Epiphytes and Forest Management". Oregon State University Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.
- ^ "Alectoria and allied genera in North America". Opera Botanica. 42: 1–164.
- ^ Crustose Rock Lichens, Wayne P. Armstrong, Waynes World online textbook, [1]
This page was last edited on 13 February 2024, at 21:37