|
|
Article: Yikes! The Lichens Went Flying.(lichens as endangered species)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- August 26, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Tales from the dark (and frequently crunchy) side of biodiversity
A phone call to the Pentagon to talk about lichens gets a better response than one might expect. There's no deputy assistant undersecretary for fungal/algal composite organisms, but the Air Force does keep a botanist at headquarters. And yes, part of his job is to attend to military-base lichens.
One of his subjects is Cladonia perforata, as close as the lichen world gets to having a celebrity. These handfuls of yellow-gray branchings adapted to life on sand dunes earned the dubious honor in 1989 of becoming the first lichen proposed for the U.S. endangered species list.
C. ...