Enjoy the natural environment


Lichens help make local woodlands so special


LICHENS, in part, make Dartmoor an important plant area, thanks to the clean air from the Atlantic and the stable habitats. One of these habitats is the special upland western oak woodlands. Here oak trees can outlive eight generations of us, so these woods provide the stable habitats that lichens need, if the surrounding woodland does not shade them out. At East Dartmoor National


Nature Reserve (eastdartmoorwoods.org) these woodlands are better known as the Bovey Valley Woods and Yarner Wood. These woods are so special for the lichens assemblage, they come under the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) like other SSSI on Dartmoor. Here, Natural England and


the Woodland Trust are working with Plantlife, on a Heritage


PLANTLIFE – RACHEL JONES


Lottery funded Building Resilience project to give more light to the valuable old wood bank trees. These wood banks have been selected to link up known areas, where lichens are both numerous and special. The aim is to include interested people where necessary, to monitor these wood banks before and after necessary thinning of shade casting trees. We are currently in the development year of the project and it would be useful if anyone interested in this, or any other part of the project contact Plantlife through http://www. plantlife.org.uk/uk/our-work/ conservation-projects/ woodland/building-resilience-in- south-west-woodlands Lichens need light because


n Cross-section through lichen.


they are a symbiotic relationship between an algae, or cyanobacteria (blue-green alga), and fungus. Imagine a microscopic slice of iced fruit


cake. What we see could be seen as the icing only. The fungus is represented by the body of the cake while the algae is sort of like the pieces of fruit. We will be celebrating these


and other important parts of our ecosystem at our joint events, these are organised and advertised through the ongoing Heritage Lottery funded Moor Than Meets The Eye landscape partnership www.moorthanmeetstheeye.org.


SUSAN YONG


n Dog lichen – Peltigra membranacea


To find out more please look at the following:


 http://eastdartmoorwoods.org/  www.naturalengland.org.uk/eastdartmoornnr  http://graniteelements.blogspot.co.uk  www.moorthanmeetstheeye.org


15


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52