Nature PEI

Wrinkled Shingle Lichen — Threatened

Wrinkled Shingle Lichen

Pannaria lurida

The Wrinkled Shingle Lichen is like many other lichens that mysteriously consist of a fungus sheltering the cyanobacteria Nostoc. (Nostoc has been around for at least 66 million years.) The Wrinkled Shingle Lichen was first found on PEI in 2009 at the Pleasant View Cedars Natural Area in western PEI. Almost a third of known sites, including Pleasant View, no longer supported this lichen in 2014, and it was listed as Threatened under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in 2019. In 2020, Wrinkled Shingle Lichen was observed on two typical Red Maple host trees in the Ellerslie area of PEI and in 2021, three additional sites with Red Maple, Eastern White Cedar and Aspen host trees were located in Prince County.

Threats to this species include accelerated losses of large deciduous trees due to harvest and blowdown from wind events, less rainfall and prolonged summer drought, and continued sulphur dioxide and acid rain deposits, though less serious than in the past.

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