Lichen Diversity at Shivrajpur Coast, Devbhoomi Dwarka, including New Additions to Gujarat state, India

Abstract

The field excursions were arranged during 2015–2017 to prepare a checklist of the lichens in Shivrajpur, district Devbhoomi Dwarka, located on India’s west coast. The vegetation of the studied sites is comprised of dry deciduous and scrub/thorny forests. A total of 44 lichen specimens were collected, which revealed 16 species within nine genera belonging to five families. Of the total recorded families, Arthoniaceae dominated with six species followed by Roccellaceae with four species, Lichinaceae, Peltulaceae and Lecanographaceae each with three, two and one species, respectively. The dominant genus was Arthonia with five species, followed by Opegrapha, Peltula and Phylliscum each with two species. Growth form of the species included a maximum of 81% crustose and the remaining 19% with squamulose growth form. With respect to habitat, corticolous consisted of 69% and saxicolous of 31%. Out of the recorded lichen species eight are new additions to Gujarat, these are Arthonia recedens Stirt., Arthonia sps., Arthothelium chiodectoides (Nyl.) Zahlbr., Lecanographa lynceoides (Müll. Arg.) Egea and Torrente, Opegrapha astraea Tuck. Opegrapha simplicior (Nyl.) Nyl., Peltula zahlbruckneri (Hasse) Wetmore and Thyrea sps.. The present first report on lichens emphasizes the uniqueness of coastal habitats in terms of interesting lichen mycobiota of the study area and will be useful as baseline records for future studies in the Gujarat state.