Case Studies

Case studies give more detail about very specific topics. They are not essential for a good understanding of lichens and the text in a case study may be at a higher technical level than the rest of the website.

There are links to specific case studies from those parts of the website to which the case studies are relevant.

This page serves as the contents page for the case studies. You can get to the various case studies by following the highlighted links. Below each link there is a one-sentence comment about the content of that case study. That sentence is not a full explanation of what's in the case study. Rather, it's a pithy reminder, intended more as a memory prompt.

Antarctic Umbilicaria
What are the names of two Antarctic lichens in paintings by Rex Filson?

Australian moths
The larvae of a number of Australian moths eat lichens.

Baeomyces rufus
There is a cyclic swapping of dominance between bryophytes and the lichen Baeomyces rufus.

Bibbya - a genus that isn't
Bibbya was described in 1956 but was soon found not to be a distinct genus.

Boundary layers
The slow-moving air near a surface - important to low-growing lichens.

Cladonia chemistry
The secondary compounds are not distributed evenly through the podetia.

Cladonia furcata
Trampling promotes persistence of the squamulose phase.

Collembola, alga and lichen
Do Collembola help lichens compete with algae?

Diyarbakir's heavenly bread and other manna of things
The edible, vagrant lichens of arid Eurasia and North Africa.

Fungal Basics
Definitions of some basic fungal terms.

Hydration & photosynthesis
The relationships between water and photosynthesis.

John Shirley's thesis
The published version of John Shirley's 1912 thesis.

Lichen verse
Two poems from the Australasian Lichenological Newsletter.

Manna lichens in the popular press
Reports of edible, vagrant lichens appeared often during the 1800s.

Marasmiellus affixus
Is this species a basidiolichen?

Sexual reproduction
Some major features of sexual reproduction in fungi

Snails, rocks and lichens in the Negev Desert
Nitrogen can move from lichens to plants via snail faeces.

Spanish grass
In arid Spain even a single grass tussock provides varied micro-habitats.

Stictis and Conotrema
Some species can be found lichenized and non-lichenized.

Surtsey
Lichen colonization of a new volcanic island.

Thysanothecium
This was the first lichen genus to be described, based on Australian material.