Scientists' Contributions

Monitoring Epiphytic Lichens in Russia and Adjacent Countries in Relation to Background Air Pollution

Gregory E. Insarov

Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, 20b Glebovskaya Street, Moscow 107258, Russia

    Why Lichens? Lichens are symbiosis of fungi with algae. Epiphytic lichens (EL) are very responsive to such environmental stressors as air quality, especially nitrogen and sulfur-based air pollution and climate. EL's sensitivity results from their total reliance on atmospheric sources of nutrition. Because lichens are so sensitive to air pollution, they are useful in monitoring of improving or deteriorating air quality.

    Environmental monitoring involves observations and assessment of changes in ecosystems and their elements caused by anthropogenic influence. The objective of the work is to develop EL monitoring methodology in order to provide a baseline against which trends of terrestrial ecosystems caused by air pollution and climatic stress could be detected. We focused our attention on monitoring of ecosystems located far away from impact sources, i. e. on background monitoring. To achieve this objective the following problems have been solved.

1. Efficient field methods for EL sampling and tools for data handling and processing have been developed. Such field methods have been elaborated at the late 1970s. From that time on, they have been tested in more than 30 nature reserves, half of which are in Europe (Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Sweden and Portugal). Sampling procedure for epiphytic lichens is approved for International Cooperative Programme on Integrated Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Ecosystems (UN ECE). A computer database and software for data handling and processing have been created.
2. Data on lichen sensitivity to air pollution and climatic factors have been collected and standardized. Data on sensitivity of more than 250 lichen species (mainly from Europe) to main air pollutants, have been collected and brought into the 100-point scale.
3. The Trend Detection Index of EL community state has been constructed. TDI has the highest resolution as it relates to the detection of anticipated man-induced temporal trends. This Index combines field data with data on lichen sensitivity.

    The outlined methodology has been used to access the state of EL communities in different floristic zones in Europe. These evaluations are starting points for detection of terrestrial ecosystem trends caused by background air pollution.