Format: ORAL

Sergio Prez-Ortega1 Alejandro Berlinches de Gea1, 2 Yolanda Turgano1 Miguel Blzquez1 Mar Villar de Pablo1,3 Francisco Gasulla4 Miguel Verd5

1 Department of Mycology, Real Jardín Botánico (CSIC), Madrid, Spain 2 Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands 3 Biogeochemistry and Microbial Ecology Department, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain 4 Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Universidad de Alcalá, Campus Externo, 28805, Alcalá de Henares, Spain 5 Department of Ecology, Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificación (CIDE-CSIC), Moncada, Valencia, Spain

Lichens, symbiotic organisms consisting of a fungus specialized in obtaining nutrients from a population of unicellular algae or cyanobacteria, have been acknowledged since the 19th century to be highly sensitive to environmental changes, particularly those of anthropogenic origin. This is largely owing to their poikilohydric nature, which lacks active mechanisms for regulating the uptake and loss of gas and water, as well as the symbiosiss fairly delicate equilibrium. Since the mid-20th century, lichens have been utilised as bioindicators for detecting changes that are caused by atmospheric pollution, habitat fragmentation and loss, global warming, etc. However, changes in lichen communities have exclusively been studied from the perspective of fluctuations in mycobiont diversity. There has been little attention to the fate of photobionts and fungal-algal interactions within the community context. Here, we present our recent research results on the impact of anthropogenic disruptions on lichen communities. We utilized metabarcoding tools to characterize species-associated photobiont communities in epiphyte communities along disturbance gradients. Our use of bipartite ecological interaction network analysis tools allowed us to detect much subtler changes than simple analysis of mycobiont diversity and abundance. This enables us to utilise them as an advance indicator of shifts in lichen communities resulting from global change agents.