Corticolous Lichen Communities Composition in Dominant Forests of Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiang Mai Province: Applications for Long-term Environmental Change Monitoring

Abstract

Lichens are organisms which are specific to environmental conditions. In different habitats, the composition of lichen appears different. This study aims to compare the composition of bole lichens communities in different forest types, consisting of dry deciduous forest (DDF), mixed deciduous forest, lower montane forest (LMF) and upper montane forest (UMF) in Doi Inthanon national park, and to select indicator lichen species or communities of each forest types. Permanent plots were established in representative areas in each forest types. Species, cover and frequency of number of lichens were collected on randomly selected 20 trees per plot. Lichens were investigated: 0 – 2 m above ground in the cardinal points by using a quadrat size of 20 cm × 20 cm. A total number of 89 species were found. DDF had the highest number of species (40) followed by LMF (35), MDF (19), and UMF (4). Multiple Response Permutation Procedure (MRPP) and Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) indicated that lichens were specific to environmental conditions in each forest type. Indicator Species Analysis (ISA) provided 19 indicator species which indicated forest condition. In addition, subset of lichen communities was appropriated for using as indicator community. Both species and communities of lichens can be applied for long-term environmental change monitoring, for example, forest management and climate change.