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Photobiont Diversity of Soil Crust Lichens Along Substrate Ecology and Altitudinal Gradients in Himalayas: A Case Study from Garhwal Himalaya

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Terricolous Lichens in India

Abstract

The symbiotic coevolution of algae and fungi in lichens has been instrumental in overall success of lichens in some of the most unfavourable habitats of the planet. Himalayas by virtue of their fragile temperature regime and diverse topography allow variety of lichen functional groups to flourish. Among these, soil-inhabiting terricolous lichens have proved to be good indicators of habitat heterogeneity and zooanthropogenic pressures. Photobiont diversity of terricolous lichens of Garhwal Himalayas showed the dominance of Chlorophyta (70 %) over Cyanoprokaryota (30 %) as photobionts. The ecological preference analysis of the photobionts indicated that majority of photobionts preferred lichens belonging to terricolous or terricolous–rupicolous ecological subgroups. Asterochloris dominated in the both subgroups, whereas Nostoc was common in muscicolous–rupicolous subgroup. The comparative dominance of the photobionts in ecological subgroups was a function of hydration preferences of photobionts. Cyanobionts dominate niches which can hold water for longer period, whereas dominate green algal chlorobionts dominate the rest. The altitudinal preferences showed that lichen species with Asterochloris were found in the range of 2,300–3,700 m, followed by Scytonema at 1,700–3,900 m, Nostoc at 2,100–3,500 m and Trebouxia at 2,800–4,000 m. As the maximum richness was within the range of 2,800–3,500-m altitude, it is evident that the diversity drivers of lichen photobionts were climatic factors (i.e. light intensity, humidity/precipitation and temperature).

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  1. Department of Lichenology and Bryology, M.H. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2 Tereshchenkivska st., 01601, Kyiv, Ukraine

    Voytsekhovich Anna & Lyudmyla Dymytrova

  2. Lichenology Laboratory, Plant Diversity, Systematics and Herbarium Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, 226001, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Himanshu Rai & Dalip Kumar Upreti

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  1. National Botanical Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Himanshu Rai

  2. National Botanical Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Dalip K. Upreti

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Anna, V., Dymytrova, L., Rai, H., Upreti, D. (2014). Photobiont Diversity of Soil Crust Lichens Along Substrate Ecology and Altitudinal Gradients in Himalayas: A Case Study from Garhwal Himalaya. In: Rai, H., Upreti, D. (eds) Terricolous Lichens in India. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8736-4_5

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