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New lichen named after Obama Jeremy Hance mongabay.com April 15, 2009
"I discovered the new species in 2007 while doing a survey for lichen diversity on Santa Rosa Island in California," Knudsen told the university’s paper. "I named it Caloplaca obamae to show my appreciation for the president's support of science and science education." The discovery of the new species was published in last months issue of Opuscula Philolichenum. "I made the final collections of C. obamae during the suspenseful final weeks of President Obama's campaign for the United States presidency, and this paper was written during the international jubilation over his election," Knudsen continued. "Indeed, the final draft was completed on the very day of President Obama's inauguration." Knudsen says that the new species nearly went extinct. Endemic to Santa Rosa Island, the second largest island off California’s coast, the species almost disappeared due to cattle ranching there. However, the removal of cattle due to a lawsuit by the National Parks Conservation Association in 1996 has allowed the lichen room to recover. "A new lichen validates the value of the public support for preserving public lands as ecological sanctuaries," Knudsen said. "C. obamae teaches us that possibly other species of lichens and plants unique to Santa Rosa Island may have disappeared, without ever being known to science, since sheep ranching began there in the 1850s." A retired construction worker, Knudsen is the lichen curator at the UCR Herbarium. Related articles Plant communities changing across the globe, says scientist Sasha Wright (03/29/2009) Having studied plant communities across three continent and within widely varied ecosystems—lowland tropics, deciduous forests, grasslands, and enclosed ecosystems on hill-tops—graduate student Sasha Wright has gained a unique understanding of shifts in plant communities worldwide as they respond to pressures from land use and global climate change. “Plant communities are certainly changing,” Wright told Mongabay.com in a March 2009 interview. “These changes are undoubtedly affected by an increased occurrence of extreme weather events, temperature fluctuations, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, human land use, and in some cases urbanization of populations.” New tree species discovered in Amazon biodiversity hotspot (08/17/2008) I was walking down the Anaconda Trail at the Madre Selva Biological Station with botanist Rodolfo Vasquez when he suddenly stopped, stared at the bark of a 120-foot tree, and started searching the ground. Odd behavior? Perhaps, but when you're with Peru's top field botanist, odd behavior is forgivable, since it means that something interesting is probably afoot. Global warming threatens California's native plants (06/24/2008) Two-thirds of California's native plants could suffer an 80 percent or more reduction in geographic range by the end of the century due to changing climate warns a study appearing tomorrow in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. SHARE THIS ARTICLE:
Tags: plants obama administration and the environment california united states endangered species islands jeremy hance green environment strange species discovery new species happy-upbeat environmental
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