IGN 8-2
Long-term data on the dynamics of lichen communities: Developing procedures for incorporating community data into iDigBio

Wednesday, August 12, 2015
345, Baltimore Convention Center
Thomas E. Miller, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Abigail I. Pastore, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Chelse M. Prather, Biology, Radford University, Radford, VA
Elise S. Gornish, Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA
Will H. Ryan, Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Robert D. Ellis, Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Saxicolous lichens are a great system, analogous to the marine hard substrate, for studying community processes such as colonization, competition, and disturbance. Well . . . . maybe not so great. They grow slowly. Really slowly. However, they are amenable to long-term photographic studies. We used 32 years of images to quantify colonization, growth, and overgrowth rates of lichen species on rock surfaces. This require dealing with the evolution of photograph format and quality over this long time period, as well as figuring out how to put data for communities into Morphbank. This was slow, too!