Technogenic Landscape as a Centre of Diversity of Rare Lichen Species in the Central Black Earth Region

Abstract

Results of the first lichenological study of the manmade mine dumps of the Michailovsky mining and processing plant including nature and urban surroundings (Zheleznogorsky district, Kursk region) are presented. Materials were collected by the route method during 2017 and 2019-2020, cameral treatment was carried out using generally accepted lichenological methods. Identified specimens are stored in the herbaria of the Prof. V. V. Alekhin Central Chernozem Natural biosphere reserve and the Station of Young Naturalists in Zheleznogorsk. The studied lichen biota includes 88 species (mainly macro-lichens, due to the collection method) from 38 genera, 18 families. The prevailing metal tolerant species are: terricolous Cladonia fimbriata, C. coniocraea, epigeic C. rei, C. mitis, C. cornuta, C. furcata, C. phyllophora and C. gracilis, epiphyticepixylous Evernia prunastri, Parmelia sulcata, Xanthoria parietina, Hypogymnia physodes and Physcia adscendens. An annotated listing of species, rare to various extent, has been made. It includes 4 new spesies for the Central Chernozem region (Cladonia cervicornis, Dibaeis baeomyces, Usnea dasopoga, U. lapponica); 5 new ones for the Kursk region (Bryoria fuscescens, Cladonia carneola, C. deformis, Melanohalea septentrionalis, Peltigera extenuata); 6 species included into Red Data Book of Kursk region (Cladonia subrangiformis, C. subulata, Peltigera praetextata, Platismatia glauca, Pseudevernia furfuracea and Usnea subfloridana); 5 more are rare for the region or more vast territories (Acarospora veronensis, Protoparmeliopsis muralis, Ramalina pollinaria, Trapelia coarctata, Usnea hirta). A large massive of a considerable amount of rare species in the technogenic landscapes seems to be determined by several causes: presence of large outcrops of a substrate rare for the region and Central Chernozem Region (ferruginous sandstone); weak competition from vascular plants on the poor and metal-enriched soils and subsoils; the botanical-geographic position of the territory; the specifics of the local environmental pollution, represented mainly by “acidic” pollutants and metal particles. The association of the regionally rare fruticose and foliose epiphytes from the ecological group of acidophiles to the birch plantations in the studied technogenic landscapes was noted. Some measures are proposed for the protection of identified rare species of lichens.