30/05/14 - 01/06/14
This course will give participants an opportunity to investigate lichens in environments around Nettlecombe at all levels from field identification of lichen communities and their component species to an investigation of microscopic characters that provide the basis for lichen taxonomy. Lichens contain a great many chemical compounds that may act as a sunscreen to the algal partner or protect against drought and we will use simple spot tests to detect a range of different compounds. Chemicals for spot tests will be provided but please bring small plastic eye dropper bottles (if you have them) for your own personal use.
Nettlecombe Park is an SSSI for its lichens so it is an ideal place to be introduced to common lichens and to some unusual lichens associated with ancient wood pasture. The course will aim to introduce participants to lichens that are found on Exmoor and to species that can be used as indicators of changing air quality or climatic conditions. The varied geology in this area supports a range of habitats and scenery from dramatic coasts to ancient woodlands, some of these being remnants of the Norman hunting grounds. We will compare lichen communities of ancient tree trunks with those on newly grown twigs of the same tree and compare lichens on pebbles of the oldest part of the storm beach at Bossington with lichens on the rock out crops above on Hurlstone point. What can the lichens tell us about changes in environmental conditions over centuries and sometimes millennia?
You can enjoy this course at the level you choose, as a beginner interested in the role of lichens as environmental indicators, or as a field lichenologist who would like opportunities to visit new areas and look at lichens and their communities in the field and under the microscope.
|
