The section of lichenology and bryology studies lichens and bryophytes. Focuses are on biodiversity dynamics in the previously heayily polluted Neiße Euroregion compared with the biodiversity hotspot Caucasus and on interactions between lichen and bryophyte vegetation and invertebrate animals. This gives often also impulses for taxonomic research.
The most ancient part of the collection is the lichen herbarium of Carl Gottlob Mosig (fig. below) that comprises also fungi and bryophytes and was created at the turn from the 18th to the 19th century. It was discovered in 1962 in an attic of the Municipial Art Collections of Görlitz and handed over to our museum.
Strictly speaking, the history of lichenological and bryological activities at our museum starts in 1833/34, when Christian Friedrich Burckhardt donated a collection of 100 Lusatian bryophytes to the Naturforschende Gesellschaft zu Görlitz. Subsequently, further members of this society, which owned our museum at that time, donated material. Particularly in the 1850ies and 1860ies a couple of smaller and also larger herbaria of cryptogamic plants were acquired. Some further acquisitions took place until World War I. Among the numerous collectors and collecting sites of that time the gatherings of the bishop of the Moravian Church Johann Christian Breutel from his visitation travels to South Africa and to the West Indies and the collections of Rudolf Rakete from the Görlitzer Heide Forest and the Sudetes are particularly worth mentioning. As the most valuable acquisition of that time, however, a collection of liverworts may be considered, which was acquired in 1862 from the Dirigent of the Princely Alum and Vitriol Factory in Muskau, Theodor Schuchardt. It represents a part of the legacy of the distiguished liverwort specialist Johann Georg Christian Lehmann with material from several collectors from all over the world, comprising approx. 40 % of all liverwort taxa known at that time and including some hundreds of type specimens.
fig. below: Xanthomaculina frondosa (Hale) Hale, a rare lichen species from South Africa represented with specimens only in few herbaria worldwide, collected by Breutel in 1854 near Groenekloof
As a result, until World War I, the “Herbarium of the Society of Natural History” contained approx. 2,000 specimens of lichens and 3,000 specimens of bryophytes. In summary, at that time the lichenological and bryological activities of the Society were the acquisition of collection material and the floristic exploration of the region of Upper Lusatia.
After the death of the curator of the botanical collections Hugo von Rabenau in 1921 a longer period of stagnation began, which was also caused by the economic problems of that time.
Only after World War II the museum was established as a research institute (beginning in 1953) and again became an important centre of regional nature study. Hence, important collections were entrusted to it again, as e.g. the bryophyte herbarium of Heinz Eckardt comprising 5,000 specimens and the lichen herbarium of Alwin Schade comprising 9,000 specimens. It was also the merit of A. Schade to identify the lichen herbarium of C.G. Mosig and to support by his expertise its saving by transfer to the Museum of Natural History. In addition to its importance as a document of historical lichen vegetation of our region, Schade also recognised the possible presence of type material of taxa described by Acharius in this collection (Schade in Abh. Ber. Naturkundemus. Görlitz 41/11), but was not able to deal with this question more intensively because of his age.
fig. below: Dr h.c. Alwin Schade (1881-1976), mentor and most important contributor of the lichen herbarium during the 1960ies/70ies (image taken from Abh. Ber. Naturkundemus. Görlitz 51/9)
Schade was a teacher not employed at our museum, but was an active honorary contributor. He published 10 papers in the Museum’s journal “Abhandlungen und Berichte”, mainly dealing with the genus Cladonia, the occurrence of its species in the region of Upper Lusatia and their interference by pollutants originating from the new power stations built in the 1960ies. In addition to Schade’s own gatherings, his herbarium contains also many specimens sent to him by a magnitude of colleages from Germany as well as from overseas. Via his former pupil J.C.E. Riotte, who emigrated during the Nazi era and became not only an Archimandrite of the Ukrainian Church in North America, but also an authority in North American entomology, many American lichen specimens have come to our collections. Alwin Schade died in 1976.
Beginning with the 1980ies, a growing number of specimens of cryptogamic plants came to our collections in connexion with research activities in soil zoology. In addition to material from the region, in particular the gatherings of the Görlitz zoo director Axel Gebauer from the 29th Soviet Antarctic expedition in 1984/85 (fig. left: Usnea aurantiacoatra (Jacq.) Bory from King George Island) were studied regarding their invertebrate fauna. However, there were no personal capacities to deal with the plant material at that time.
For many years an important research topic of our museum was the influence of industrial immissions on the biota of our region, which was known as the “Black Triangle” in the 20th century because of its extreme environmental pollution. Occasionally this included lichen mapping during practical courses for students.
In the 1990ies the moss collection was revised, newly arranged and enriched by Markus Reimann. The lichen collection was dealt with from 2002 to 2004 by Volker Otte. On this occasion, the considerable number of type specimens (approx. 200) in the lichen herbarium of C.G. Mosig was recognised and the missing catalogue of this collection written in 1829 was rediscovered. It was also possible to work up the Antarctic collections, which provided revised material for comparison purposes as well as taxonomic expertise for subsequent research activities in the Antarctic region.
Subsequently V. Otte worked in several projects at the museum. Besides aspects of biodiversity changes of cryptogams in the closer region after the considerable improvement of the environmental situation, his interests focused on biocenotic interactions between cryptogamic plants and invertebrate animals, comparing the situation in the anthropogenously heavily affected Neiße Euroregion and the little affected western Caucasus.
With the incorporation of the museum into the Senckenberg network the section of lichenology and bryology was established, whose head is Volker Otte since 1st April, 2009. Collection housing and working conditions have much improved since January 2010 as a result of moving of the cryptogamic sections to their new domicile in the Jakobstraße (fig. right). After a further move, into the building of the tax authority at the “Sonnenplan” in 2013, we are looking forward now to the move to our final location in the new buiding of our museum expected for 2022.
For our current activities, please read the other pages of our internet presentation.
Special interest is devoted to interactions between cryptogamic vegetation and invertebrate animals in cooperation with the department of soil zoology of our museum. In the recently finished Antarctic project we studied the cryptogamic vegetation and have found considerable effects of its presence and character onto the fauna. Further studies included feeding preferences of oribatid mites in terms of lichens and bryophytes as well as the use of different lichen species as a habitat for oribatid mites in anthropogenously undamaged biotopes in the Caucasus. For studying the reestablishment of the coenosis of the seriously damaged epiphytic cryptogamic synusia in our region after the environmental situation has become better now, a first sampling was done on selected plots as a basis for long-term studies.
Our museum is situated immediately within the so-called “Black Triangle”, an area that has had the highest air pollution in Europe during the 20th century. Cryptogamic vegetation, particularly the epiphytic one, has nearly totally been destroyed here. Currently we carry out a project funded by the European Union in cooperation with the Giant Mountains National Park and the University of Wrocław (Republic of Poland) under the title “Umwelt im Wandel – das Schwarze Dreieck wird wieder bunt”. Its main focus is on providing infrastructure for studying the biodiversity dynamics of cryptogamic plants in our region (permanent observation plots, database, internet portal, qualifying voluntary observers).
Land use is one of the most influential factors driving biodiversity. In botany, studies on this topic have mostly focused on vascular plants, but those results need not necessarily to be true also for other groups. In particular, a current PhD project is devoted to the question how protection of lichens and bryophytes can be integrated in forestry.
Our studies are to reveal how several land use systems affect lichen diversity and whether the results are in line with those from vascular plants or contrary to them platation in the Lower Lusatia, poor in vascular plants, rich in epiphytic lichen species).
Central European ecosystems have been affected by industrial pollutants during the 20th century; now ammonia immissions are leading to deviations from the species composition that has to be considered as natural in many habitats. As a model area for ecosystems not affected by pollution the Caucasus is in the focus of our attention. Current studies are dealing with effects of land use onto broadleaf forest ecosystems not damaged by pollutants in the World Nature Heritage Site Western Caucasus.
The Caucasus is simultaneously known as a hot spot of biodiversity within the Holarctic. Current studies are aimed at the question, whether its biogeographical peculiarities depend on climatic features and might therefore potentially be at risk under climate change.
Studying biocoenotic questions inevitably confronts the searcher also with taxonomic questions. The extensive collections of our museum provide valuable support for taxonomic work.
In the moment, taxonomic studies are done on the beard lichen genus Usnea Adans., which is quite diverse in the Caucasus and invading also our region now with many species following the decline of air pollution.
During the last few years, we paid particular attention to aspicilioid lichens from the Transcaucasian region and Iran, whose diversity becomes clarified only step by step.
Recently much attention was paid to studies related to the preparation of the new edition of the German Lichen Flora (Wirth et al., 2013). For this purpose, distribution of all occuring species in the federal states of Saxony, Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Berlin according to macrochores was investigated and therefor a large number of herbarium specimens was revised. This enabled elimination of many erroneous records. Applied biodiversity research includes also substantial contributions to the new editions of the Red Data Books of the northern Caucasian territories Republic of Adygheya and Krasnodarskiy Kray (Russian Federation) as well as of Germany.
Minor projects during the last years have been devoted e.g. to evaluation of the network of nature reservations in the state of Saxony concerning its sufficiency for preservation of lichens in a changing climate and after the decline of air pollution, funded by the State Office for Environment of Saxony and to the creation of “species characteristics” for the use in monitoring of the lichen taxa of the EU guideline 92/43/EWG.
Since 2010 our section is responsible for the long-term lichen monitoring in the Königsbrücker Heide, a previous military training area, which is now one of the largest nature reserves in Saxony.
You can find topics for Msc theses or internships here.
As the general topic of all of our studies “biodiversity” can be named. A fundamental principle in our work dealing with biodiversity issues is strict quality assurance by durably depositing specimens of the involved taxa in the collections of our museum.
At present, the lichen herbarium comprises more than 70,000 specimens. An exceptionally valuable part of the collection is the lichen herbarium of Carl Gottlob Mosig which was created around the year 1800. It contains numerous type specimens of taxa that were described in the “Lichenographia universalis” of Erik Acharius (1810). Altogether approx. 800 collectors are represented in the museum collection. Particularly extensive material originates from the gatherings of Alwin Schade, Herbert Schindler, Hermann Lange, Johann Christian Breutel, Jules Charles Emile Riotte, Andreas Gnüchtel and our own collecting activities.
Special geographic emphases are set on Central Europe (in particular Saxony and the former Silesia), but also southeastern Europe, South Africa and Australia are provenances represented by many specimens. A particularly fast growing part of the collection is the material of Caucasian lichens resulting from our current research activities in this region. Our herbarium houses presumably the largest collection of Caucasian lichens outside the CIS countries. It is the principal source of biodiversity data of lichens from the Caucasus at GBIF.
Regarding taxonomic entities, in particular the genera Usnea Adans., Rhizocarpon DC., Ramalina Ach. and Lecanora Ach. are represented with numerous taxa and specimens.
The lichen collection database is searchable online as a part of the Senckenberg collection database SeSam [go to “search” and choose then “Herbarium Senckenbergianum – Fungi] and also via GBIF.
The bryophyte herbarium comprises approx. 40,000 specimens. A highlight is the liverwort herbarium of Johann Georg Christian Lehmann created in the middle of the 19th century. It comprises a large number of type specimens from all over the world, with collectors as e.g. Charles Darwin, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Christian Friedrich Ecklon. Altogether approx. 300 collectors are represented by specimens in the bryophyte herbarium. Particularly rich material originates from Johann Christian Breutel, Heinz Eckardt and Markus Reimann.
Special geographic emphases are set on Central Europe (in particular Saxony and the former Silesia), South Africa and the Caucasus.
Taxonomic emphases are on several liverwort genera from the Lehmann Herbarium, as e.g. the genera Frullania Raddi and Plagiochila (Dumort.) Dumort. and the familiy of Lejeuneaceae.
The specimens are searchable online as a part of the Senckenberg collection database SeSam [go to “search” and choose then “Herbarium Senckenbergianum (GLM)] and also via GBIF.
