Most are the result of an alliance between a fungus and a microscopic algae; there are nearly 20,000 species in the world, including around 1,600 in Quebec. They proliferate in inhospitable environments such as deserts and tundras, and they play an important ecological role in several boreal, subarctic and arctic ecosystems. And yet, we know so little about lichens.
It is to partly fill this lack of knowledge that a team composed of Catherine Boudreault, Kim Damboise and Serge Payette, from the Louis-Marie Herbarium at Laval University, has just published Lichens of northern Quebecat the Presses de l’Université Laval.
The first Quebec work on these organisms which are classified in the kingdom of mushrooms, this book presents 245 species from the northern regions of Quebec, several of which are also found in the south of the province.
To facilitate the work of identifying these species, the editorial team has created a photographic key, which allows visual recognition of many of the species presented in their work, as well as a standard identification key.
Each species is described in detail, including photos highlighting its distinctive morphological characteristics. Finally, the description is completed by a distribution map constructed from the approximately 32,000 lichen specimens cataloged in the Louis-Marie Herbarium and from the online collections of several other herbaria in Canada and the United States.
The general public, naturalists and people who study or work in the field of the environment will find in this work essential information to support them in their discovery of the fascinating world of lichens.
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