Staff News: Tombstones and lichen under the spotlight

Lichen: Cladonia cervicornis var. verticellata

August 2007

DEC's Manjimup Principal Technical Officer Ray Cranfield has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study lichens in England and Sweden in 2008.

In his first international trip, Ray will spend seven weeks in Europe in June and July examining historical lichen records and roaming cemeteries looking for lichen on tombstones.

Ray said tombstones were often the only remaining sites for lichen growth in southern England.

Knowledge gleaned from the trip will help him improve Western Australian records on lichen.

"We've got all these names for lichens but often we don't know what they look like so we're not sure if the species is here," Ray said.

"I'll be looking at collections to try and find specimens that we do not have in Perth and photos will be taken so we can add to our databases for WA."

Ray said he would also examine community-participation methods used in England which encourage volunteers to survey lichens, often by examining old tombstones.

"I'd like to see how they maintain the volunteers' enthusiasm and then use these techniques to encourage volunteers here to examine granite outcrops for lichens," he said.

Ray said lichen was a good indicator of environmental health and also stabilised soils and provides nutrients.

He said 720 species of lichen had so far been recorded in WA. However, many more species were thought to remain unidentified.

"There is so little known about lichens in Western Australia," he said.

"I'd like to gather as much information as possible to create a lichen encyclopedia and add to FloraBase."