70% lichens are lost in Maharashtra, say ARI scientists

Rapid deforestation and urbanisation are robbing this critical element of flora and fauna of their home in the Western Ghats

Maharashtra has already lost 70 per cent of its lichens, located largely in the Western Ghats to urbanisation, deforestation and other climatic changes, say scientists at Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), who’ve been studying different species of the symbiotic organism.

This element of the flora establish the symbiotic relationship between algae and fungus and plays an important role in evolving the ecology. They also have critical health implications and applications. “Lichens grow everywhere. They can be found on barks of trees, rocks, soil and even on animal carcasses. They grow at a pace of 1.5 mm in a year and half. The rapid destruction of forests and the deteriorating environment are threatening lichens enormously,” informed Bhaskar Charan Behera, a senior scientist at ARI.

Among the areas where lichens were earlier found in abundance were Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala and Khandala but they have been steadily disappearing from these places with some prominent spots becoming completely bereft of their presence. Behera pointed out that while globally there about 20,000 species of lichens, about 3,000 of them (almost 12 per cent) are found in India.

Lichens are bio-indicators of good air quality, added Bharati Sharma, technical officer at the institute. “They absorb pollution and clean the air. Many cities map their air quality based on the presence of these lichens. Even rocks are broken into soil by their acidic characteristics,” she explained.

Lichens find application in many man-made products, such as spices, dyes, perfumes and cosmetics, Behera listed out. They also have medicinal properties such as anti-microbial, anti-oxidants and anti-tumour.

Lichens synthesise metabolites and have shown many biological activities. They can used to treat HIV, cardiovascular ailments, regulate blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and assist blood clotting and are also known to be hepatoprotective and neuroprotective. “Such metabolites cannot be secreted by any other flora and fauna, which makes it all the more important to conserve them,” Behera urged.

To date the institute has collected over 30,000 specimens of lichens and collated data on them through scientific study. Now it is all set to digitise the data and make it available to others in the scientific community. This pursuit of analysing the lichens can help to study climate change and also to find out if any species that is lost can be rediscovered in the long run, the scientists said.