Competitive behaviour of umbilicate lichens - an experimental approach

The lichens Lasallia pustulata and Umbilicaria spodochroa grow in dense monospecific or mixed populations on the coastal cliffs of southern Scandinavia. Attached to the substrate by only a thin central holdfast, their shield-shaped thalli compete for light and space for growth by overlapping each other. Matched pair experiments in the laboratory and field observations of interacting pairs show that different behavioural responses to precipitation tend to result in the margins of U. spodochroa overlapping those of L. pustulata within a few minutes. The behaviour is apparently caused by different capacities for water absorption in the upper and lower cortices of the species. An initial period of repeated encounter caused by thallus expansion and contraction during precipitation will be followed by a period in which U. spodochroa grows to overlap L. pustulata more and more. When the overlapping lichens are wet, flexible and photosynthetically active, the thallus above rests directly on the upper surface of the one below. Very little light is transmitted through thalli of U. spodochroa, and the shaded parts of L. pustulata are retarded in their growth and die off.