Addressing Colorado Lichens and Bryophytes as Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change

Addressing Colorado Lichens and Bryophytes as Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change

Project Summary

This award joins the ongoing Thematic Collections Network project on "North American Lichens and Bryophytes: Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change". The primary goal of this project is to image label data from the 100,000 North American bryophyte (mosses) and lichen specimens held at the University of Colorado Herbarium (COLO). The main scientific questions to be addressed from these efforts are: (1) How are changes in distribution patterns of lichens and bryophytes over time correlated with man-made environmental changes? (2) Can mapping of specimens document such changes, and can these organisms be used as bioindicators to focus our attention on steps needed to maintain a healthy environment? Natural history museums and herbaria serve as storehouses for plant and animal specimens collected over generations of scientific investigation. Collections are the basis for our understanding of life's diversity in all its abundance and variation across nature. The collections from Colorado will add information about high altitude lichens and bryophytes and will fill a gap for the original network.

Project Leadership

Project Lead PI (Lead Principal Investigator): Timothy Hogan, University of Colorado at Boulder

NSF Award Number

1205084