''Cladonia perforata'' is a rare species of

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

known as Florida perforate cladonia and Florida perforate reindeer lichen. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the state of

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

in the United States, where it is known from 16 populations in four widely separated areas of the state.USFWS
''Cladonia perforata'' Five-year Review.
2007. It is native to a very specific type of

Florida scrub Florida scrub is a forest ecoregion found throughout Florida in the United States. It is found on coastal and inland sand ridges and is characterized by an evergreen Xerophyte, xeromorphic plant community dominated by shrubs and dwarf oaks. Becau ...

habitat which is increasingly rare and patchy due to

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

, degradation, and fragmentation. In 1993 this was the first species of lichen to be federally listed as an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

of the United States.Teague, D. and D. Ripley
A tale of two species.
''Endangered Species Bulletin''. November, 2000.Milius, S
Yikes! The Lichens Went Flying - lichens as endangered species.
''Science News'' August 26, 2000.

Description

This lichen is relatively large, its yellow-gray, slightly glossy

fruiting body The sporocarp (also known as fruiting body, fruit body or fruitbody) of fungi is a multicellular structure on which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruitbody is part of the sexual phase of a fungal life cyc ...

measuring up to in length.USFWS
Endangered or threatened status for seven Central Florida plants.
''Federal Register'' April 27, 1993. The fruiting body, the visible part of the lichen, is a branching, tufted structure. The branches, or ''

podetia A podetium (plural: podetia) is the upright secondary thallus in ''Cladonia'' lichens. It is a hollow stalk extending from the . Podetia can be pointed stalks, club like, cupped, or branched in shape and may or may not contain the ascocarp, the f ...

'', are lined with

hypha A hypha (; ) is a long, branching, filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacterium. In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium. Structure A hypha consists of one o ...

e on their inner surfaces and are

perforated A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a ''perforation''. The process of creating perforations is called perfor ...

with tiny holes. It and similar species undergo

vegetative reproduction Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is a form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or specializ ...

in which it

clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh, Ireland * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland * Clones railway station, Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massiv ...

by physically breaking up and spreading. No

sexual reproduction Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote tha ...

has been observed. The lichen's method of

biological dispersal Biological dispersal refers to both the movement of individuals (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.) from their birth site to their breeding site ('natal dispersal') and the movement from one breeding site to another ('breeding dispersal' ...

is to have its fragments swept or blown to new locations. In general, this species is poorly known. Little information is available about its life history, including its precise reproductive cycle, growth,

population dynamics Population dynamics is the type of mathematics used to model and study the size and age composition of populations as dynamical systems. Population dynamics is a branch of mathematical biology, and uses mathematical techniques such as differenti ...

, or any seasonal changes it might experience.

Distribution and habitat

The habitat of this species is the white sand of the Florida scrub, already a rare and endangered type of ecosystem, and the lichen requires a specific spot within the habitat. It can be found on high

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s and ridges among sand pines (''Pinus clausa'') in the part of the scrub

understory In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the Canopy (biology), forest ca ...

called "rosemary balds": land dominated by Florida rosemary (''Ceratiola ericoides'').USFWS
''Cladonia perforata'' Species Fact Sheet.
Multispecies Recovery Plan for South Florida. The lichen occurs in very dry, open sites on sand with little plant cover around it. It can often be found tangled up in clumps with other species of lichen. It is difficult to estimate the abundance of this species. Much of the current data is outdated. The organism in question is often small and sometimes hard to spot on the ground or in the

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituen ...

. Furthermore, what constitutes one individual organism is not always apparent; one living lichen may be several centimeters long or just a tiny fragment. Populations fluctuate often, occurrences are destroyed, and several new ones have been discovered and rediscovered in recent years. The species was first discovered in 1945 by

George A. Llano George Albert Llano (22 November 1911 – 9 February 2003), born Jorge Alberto Cecilio Perez y Llano, was a Cuban-born American polar explorer and botanist who specialized in the field of lichenology. He was an expert in the Umbilicariaceae. Ea ...

Eglin Air Force Base Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base in the western Florida panhandle, located about southwest of Valparaiso, Florida, Valparaiso in Okaloosa County, Florida, Okaloosa County. The host unit at Eglin is the 96th Test ...

property on Santa Rosa Island near

Pensacola Pensacola ( ) is a city in the Florida panhandle in the United States. It is the county seat and only city in Escambia County. The population was 54,312 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Pensacola metropolitan area, which ha ...

.Buckley, A. and T. O. Hendrickson. (1988)
The distribution of ''Cladonia perforata'' Evans on the southern Lake Wales Ridge in Highlands County, Florida.
''The Bryologist'' 91(4): 354–356. This, the lichen's type locality, was later paved and the population presumably destroyed. A population was rediscovered in this area of the

Florida Panhandle The Florida panhandle (also known as West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida. It is a Salient (geography), salient roughly long, bordered by Alabama on the west and north, Georgia (U.S. state ...

in 1989.Wilhelm, G. S. and J. R. Burkhalter. (1990)
''Cladonia perforata'', the Northwest Florida population.
''The Bryologist'' 93(1): 66–68. The species has a

disjunct distribution In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

: the other populations are located on the east and west coasts of the main peninsula of Florida.

Conservation

Threats to this species include development of its habitat for residential,

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

, and commercial use, pollution and trash dumping,

off-road vehicle An off-road vehicle (ORV), also known as an off-highway vehicle (OHV), overland vehicle or adventure vehicle, is a type of transportation specifically engineered to navigate unpaved roads and surfaces. These include trails, forest roads, and ...

use, trampling and crushing by people, animals, and vehicles, and severe storms and

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

s. Natural processes such as

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its ...

s and fires are necessary for maintaining habitat such as Florida scrub, but these events do kill the lichen by burning it,Yahr, R. (2003)
''Cladonia perforata''
2006.

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological spe ...

. IUCN 2010
www.iucnredlist.org
. Retrieved on 12 February 2011. crushing it to small pieces, sweeping it away in

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

s, or burying it in sand.

Hurricane Opal Hurricane Opal was a large and powerful tropical cyclone that caused severe and extensive damage along the northern Gulf Coast of the United States in October 1995. The fifteenth named storm, ninth hurricane and strongest tropical cyclone of th ...

in 1995, for example, destroyed at least two known occurrences of the lichen. Lichen rescue operations are sometimes performed in the days after a hurricane in an effort to unbury individuals from sand and debris, and even pluck them out of trees where they have landed. Some individuals are collected on beds of sand and brought indoors when storms are expected. Even if the lichen itself is undamaged in a storm, parts of its rare, limited potential habitat may be rendered unsuitable by disturbances. The lichen is also vulnerable because it is slow-growing, slow to recover after mortality, inefficient in its dispersal, and already rare with unstable populations. Its patchy, fragmented distribution makes it likely to experience isolation and

extirpation Local extinction, also extirpation, is the termination of a species (or other taxon) in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with extinction, global extinctions. Local extinctions ...

of small populations. Since most populations are just clusters of clones, each population is extremely valuable in the conservation of the species. The populations occur in North, Central, and South Florida, and can be separated by hundreds of miles;

gene flow In population genetics, gene flow (also known as migration and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic variation, genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent ...

between them is often highly unlikely. New populations have been reintroduced to appropriate habitat where the species has been observed before. Many populations are located in areas that are protected from development and fragmentation. At last review the species was still considered endangered.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3678926 perforata Lichen species Lichens of the Southeastern United States Lichens described in 1952