Lichens of California's Journal

January 26 · 10am - January 28 · 4pm
California Lichen Society Annual Meeting
January 24-26, 2020
UC Sedgwick Field Station, Santa Barbara County
https://ucnrs.org/reserves/sedgwick-reserve/

From the event website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-california-lichen-society-annual-meeting-and-foray-tickets-788829138187

The California Lichen Society is planning to hold our annual meeting at the Sedgewick UC Field Station near Santa Barbara. We will take a field trip to notable lichen locations in the vicinity during the day, followed by an evening social, potluck dinner, meeting, and guest lecture at the field station. Our evening guest speakers will be announced soon.

I look forward to welcoming you all to the Sedgewick. It should be a great opportunity to make new friends and catch up with old friends. Everyone is welcome, whether you are a novice or a seasoned lichenologist. Locations and schedule details for both the field trip and the evening session will be sent to registrants before the event.

Camping and limited dorm beds are available at the Sedgewick field station for both Friday and Saturday nights. You are welcome to spend the night or attend for the day only, as you prefer. Hotels are also available reasonably close to the site. Some of our members may gather for additional lichenizing on Friday and / or Sunday--stay tuned for details.

Please be sure to register for camping or a dorm bed as an add-on to your ticket if you want to spend the night on-site. If you are staying for the evening session on Saturday, please bring a contribution for the potluck dinner, per the CALS tradition! We will send out a sign-up for the potluck shortly before the meeting. The kitchen is small so please bring food ready to serve, or as close as possible.

We request a $20-40 donation (in addition to any lodging fees & payable at registration) to help cover the costs of the meeting, but no one will be turned away. Any proceeds beyond the meeting costs will go to support our grants program, which primarily funds student research on lichens. We expect that the cost to CALS of holding the meeting will be about $30 per person (not counting lodging costs)--if you can donate more, this will help us cover registration for student and low income people.

We will offer a limited number of $50 stipends to students who need help covering travel costs to attend the meeting. Please apply here if you would like to request a stipend. We will let you know if we can give you a stipend before the meeting.

Unpaid review, and full disclosure, I do not yet have a copy to evaluate myself, but a couple of lichen enthusiasts have made me aware of it and it's on my list.

I may update with a review if and when I order a copy, but for those thinking of acquiring a guide, a couple unprompted reviews from this observation (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/69863592#activity_comment_82362328-3c7c-4e81-9ef9-8596063b282c)

"A Field Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, 2014, p. 157. @yerbasanta, if you're still thinking about the book, I can say: Excellent photos, comprehensive index, decent glossary, clear and well written. I highly recommend it! I believe I also saw Cladonia asahinai in Toro Park 2 days ago..."

"I've only ID'd a few lichen using it but so far so good... I am beginning to sense that identifying lichens is a lot like identifying marine algae. It's so much more satisfying to gather material and bring it into the lab where using a dissecting scope and books and doing spot tests with reagents is so much easier. When I take photos of something I haven't keyed out before, I often find later that I photographed the wrong features."

Good reads has one review (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18723472-a-field-guide-to-california-lichens?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=10y0pFLPwX&rank=1), which isn't exactly glowing, but does mention that it's one of the only readily available guides to CA lichens:

"This field guide by Sharnoff is the only readily available book on lichens in California. It's a lovely one with full color photos throughout. It is also decidedly not beginner friendly. The vocabulary becomes daunting almost immediately. There are no dichotomous keys..."

Links to the book and some photos from the author below, let me know if you've found good online or print resources/keys for identifying lichens in the comments if you can.

Link to purchase: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300195002/field-guide-california-lichens

Photos of lichen genera from the author: http://www.sharnoffphotos.com/lichens/lichens_home_index.html

Very well-written and informative article on the nature of lichens (including a parasitic lichen!) in Bay Nature on the nature of lichens and the questions they raise on the nature of an 'organism' beyond ordinary lichens, article quoted below.

"And because it’s lichen we’re talking about, there’s one more complicating factor. Some mycobionts—that’s the fungus part of the lichen—are just badly behaved. Take Diploschistes muscorum, for instance: It’s a parasitic lichen, and it starts its development on a Cladonia lichen, gradually replacing Cladonia filaments by growing over them and sucking energy from their algal partner, Trebouxia irregularis. At some point, though, the takeover is complete and Trebouxia irregularis is replaced by our Diploschistes’s preferred algal partner, Trebouxia showmannii. At that point, Diploschistes leaves off with the parasitism and behaves like any other lichen...this is the lichen world’s version of Theseus’s paradox: Is an object that has had every part removed and replaced—as happened with the rotting boards of Theseus’s ship, per Plutarch—the same object?"

Article link: https://baynature.org/article/identifying-with-lichen/

Parasitic lichen and preferred algal partner
Diploschistes muscorum--https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/124441-Diploschistes-muscorum
Trebouxia showmannii (no species page)--https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/55163-Trebouxia

Host lichen and algal partner
Cladonia--https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/49490-Cladonia
Trebouxia irregularis--https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/996197-Trebouxia-irregularis

California Lichen Society Annual Meeting
January 24-26, 2020
UC Hastings Natural History Reservation, Monterey County

The California Lichen Society (CALS) annual meeting and 26th birthday celebration will be held at the UC Hastings during the last weekend in January 2020. Open for all to attend!

http://www.californialichens.org/news/26th-annual-meeting-of-the-california-lichen-society/

From website:
The California Lichen Society’s 26th Annual Meeting will be held at Hastings Natural History Reserve on Carmel Valley Road, January 24th – 26th, 2020. The weekend celebration will include field trips on Friday and Saturday. Additionally, on Saturday there will be an open meeting of the Board of Directors, and a social hour followed by a pot-luck dinner. Afterwards will be a presentation by an eminent guest speaker. In your free time between all these activities, participate in lichen identification sessions and enjoyable lichen chatter. This event connects CALS members with California lichens.

Hastings Reserve is part of the Big Sur wilderness area in central coastal California. The site is unique, with some rare flora given that the site has not been used for grazing in over 70 years. Additionally, the site has been observed, researched, and protected for just as long, offering insights into the natural ecological systems. The reserve is primarily a mixture of live oaks and redwoods with perennial stream riparian zones mixed in. With a rich non-vascular flora, join CALS in identifying the lichens at Hastings Reserve as we celebrate 26 years of lichenology in California.

If interested in participating, email memberatlarge@californialichens.org for more information or to register. Lodging options are on a first come first serve basis.

CALS Annual Meeting at UC Davis’ Quail Ridge Reserve, near Lake Berryessa

Save the Date!
California Lichen Society Annual Meeting
January 25-27, 2019
UC Davis Quail Ridge Reserve, on Lake Berryessa

The California Lichen Society (CALS) annual meeting and 25th birthday celebration will be held at the UC Davis Quail Ridge Reserve during the last weekend in January 2019.

http://californialichens.org/2018/cals-annual-meeting-at-uc-davis-quail-ridge-reserve-near-lake-berryessa/