Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

A groundbreaking lichen and fungal inventory from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, reveals unprecedented biodiversity, with 947 taxa identified—including 831 lichen-forming species and 96 lichenicolous fungi. Notably, 98 species (10.3%) could not be assigned to known taxa, with two new genera and 27 new species described, alongside 38 taxa new to North America and 93 new to Alaska. The study employed classical field inventory combined with chemical and molecular analysis, validating the placement of ten new species using multi-locus DNA sequencing. This represents the second-largest lichen inventory from a comparable area globally and the largest in North America, underscoring the high diversity potential of high-latitude ecosystems.

Spribille, T., Fryday, A. M., Pérez-Ortega, S., Svensson, M., Tønsberg, T., Ekman, S., Holien, H., Resl, P., Schneider, K., Stabentheiner, E., Thüs, H., Vondrák, J., & Sharman, L. (2020). Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. The Lichenologist, 52(2), 61–181. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0024282920000079