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Lichens are symbiotic organisms susceptible to environmental alteration due to their morphological and physiological features. For this reason, researchers and decision-makers are extensively using lichen biomonitoring for assessing the effects of various anthropogenic disturbances. The Special Issue was launched to fulfil some knowledge gaps in this field, such as the development of procedures to interpret and compare results. The SI includes three reviews that explore the application of lichen biomonitoring for detecting the effects of climate change. Three articles and one review paper examined the use at a decision level of biomonitoring of air pollution employing lichens, including the application in environmental forensic. Finally, six research articles are illustrative examples of lichen biomonitoring in poorly known habitats, providing data from the physiological to the community level of observation, and pose the basis for extending comparable approaches on a global scale.

Epiphytic lichens are a characteristic feature of many forests around the world, where they often cover large areas on stems and branches. Recently, it has been found that lichens may contribute substantially to carbon and nutrient uptake in forests. Moreover, they have a large influence on interception of rainfall at the global scale, which leads to a shift of the water balance toward evaporation and a cooling of near-surface air temperature. It is thus crucial to understand which environmental factors are relevant for their growth and survival, and which potential risks may result from climate change. Water supply is a key factor which controls active time and, consequently, the carbon balance of the epiphytes. However, it is largely unclear, to what extent different modes of water uptake, which include bark water, may affect active time and growth under varying environmental conditions. Quantitative estimates on the relevance of bark water storage and its interspecific variation are, however, missing. Here, we apply the process-based, dynamic non-vascular vegetation model LiBry to assess the relevance of bark water for epiphytic lichens. LiBry not only accounts for the main physiological processes of mosses and lichens, it also represents explicitly the diversity of the organisms, by simulating a large number of possible physiological strategies. We run the model for a site in Sardinia, where epiphytic lichens are abundant. Moreover, the Mediterranean region is of interest due to likely substantial effects of global warming on local epiphytes. For current climatic conditions, the LiBry model predicts net primary production (NPP) of 32 g C m −2 a −1 per stem area and biomass of 48 g C m −2 for the study region. In a second run, where uptake of bark water is switched off in the model, estimated NPP is reduced by 21%. Moreover, the simulated number of surviving strategies, representing physiological diversity, decreases by 23%. This is accompanied by changes in the simulated community composition, where strategies which have a more compact thallus increase their share on the total cover. Hence, our model simulation suggests a substantial role of bark water for growth and morphology of epiphytic lichens in Sardinia.

The use of mobile communication devices in health care is spreading worldwide. A huge amount of health data collected by these devices (mobile health data) is nowadays available. Mobile health data may allow for real-time monitoring of patients and delivering ad-hoc treatment recommendations. This paper aims at showing how this may be done by exploiting the potentialities of fuzzy clustering techniques. In fact, such techniques can be fruitfully applied to mobile health data in order to identify clusters of patients for diagnostic classification and cluster-specific therapies. However, since mobile health data are full of noise, fuzzy clustering methods cannot be directly applied to mobile health data. Such data must be denoised prior to analyzing them. When longitudinal mobile health data are available, functional data analysis represents a powerful tool for filtering out the noise in the data. Fuzzy clustering methods for functional data can then be used to determine groups of patients. In this work we develop a fuzzy clustering method, based on the concept of medoid, for functional data and we apply it to longitudinal mHealth data on daily symptoms and consumptions of anti-symptomatic drugs collected by two sets of patients in Berlin (Germany) and Ascoli Piceno (Italy) suffering from allergic rhinoconjunctivitis. The studies showed that clusters of patients with similar changes in symptoms were identified opening the possibility of precision medicine.

We explored the influence of climatic factors on diversity patterns of multiple taxa (lichens, bryophytes, and vascular plants) along a steep elevational gradient to predict communities’ dynamics under future climate change scenarios in Mediterranean regions. We analysed (1) species richness patterns in terms of heat-adapted, intermediate, and cold-adapted species; (2) pairwise beta-diversity patterns, also accounting for its two different components, species replacement and richness difference; (3) the influence of climatic variables on species functional traits. Species richness is influenced by different factors between three taxonomic groups, while beta diversity differs mainly between plants and cryptogams. Functional traits are influenced by different factors in each taxonomic group. On the basis of our observations, poikilohydric cryptogams could be more impacted by climate change than vascular plants. However, contrasting species-climate and traits-climate relationships were also found between lichens and bryophytes suggesting that each group may be sensitive to different components of climate change. Our study supports the usefulness of a multi-taxon approach coupled with a species traits analysis to better unravel the response of terrestrial communities to climate change. This would be especially relevant for lichens and bryophytes, whose response to climate change is still poorly explored.

Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through the analysis of species functional traits. The power of the functional trait approach is its generality, predictive capacity such as with respect to environmental change, and, through linkage of response and effect traits, the synthesis of community assembly with ecosystem function and services. Lichens are a potentially rich source of information about how traits govern community structure and function, thereby creating opportunity to better integrate lichens into ‘mainstream’ ecological studies, while lichen ecology and conservation can also benefit from using the trait approach as an investigative tool. This paper brings together a range of author perspectives to review the use of traits in lichenology, particularly with respect to European ecosystems from the Mediterranean to the Arctic-Alpine. It emphasizes the types of traits that lichenologists have used in their studies, both response and effect, the bundling of traits towards the evolution of life-history strategies, and the critical importance of scale (both spatial and temporal) in functional trait ecology.

Lichens and bryophytes, as poikilohydric and poikilothermic organisms, reach equilibrium with their surroundings. However, non‐vascular epiphytic communities contribute to ecosystem functions, such as water and energy balance, by interacting with the environment through water and heat exchange at the substrate‐atmosphere interface. We hypothesized that variations in water content during dehydration cycles could alter thermal patterns, leading to greater thermal heterogeneity associated with increased life‐form diversity. We captured infrared images of eight bark sample categories representing different epiphytic community compositions. Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed how epiphytic community composition influenced thermal patterns, both directly and indirectly, through water‐related variables. Our findings indicate that foliose lichens and bryophytes exhibited similar water and thermal trends. Both life forms, characterized by higher water content (WC), negatively affected thermal variables. In contrast, crustose lichens had opposing effects on WC and thermal dynamics. From the saturation point, the average WC over five sessions remained above 50% in samples colonized solely by foliose lichens or bryophytes and nearly 80% in those with both. In contrast, samples dominated by crustose lichens had an average WC below 20%. Bark samples with higher bryophyte and foliose lichen cover retained water for longer, whereas those dominated by crustose lichens lost water more rapidly. Regarding temperature, bryophytes and foliose lichens started at approximately 12°C, with mean final temperatures of 13.7°C and 14.4°C, respectively. Crustose lichens had a higher mean initial temperature of 12.5°C and a final temperature of 16.65°C. These differences may be explained by morphological traits, such as the greater hydrophilic properties and higher surface‐to‐volume ratio of bryophytes and foliose lichens compared to the hydrophobic properties and lower surface‐to‐volume ratio of crustose lichens. This study underscores the importance of incorporating non‐vascular epiphytic communities into ecological research aimed at elucidating the regulation of thermal and water dynamics at fine scale levels. The thermoregulatory mechanisms of lichens and bryophytes at a fine scale can impact the surface thermal pattern. Furthermore, the morphological aspects of non‐vascular epiphytes can drive a different effect in terms of thermal patterns. Our results open the way for new research perspectives on the role of thermal traits within cryptogamic communities by studying the relationship between the functional traits of non‐vascular epiphytes and ecosystem functions, particularly in the context of thermal dynamics.

The aim of the study is to evaluate the anti-tyrosinase activity of different aqueous extracts obtained from pomegranate juice processing by-products. External pomegranate peels of two certified cultivars (Akko and Wonderful), were extracted using only water as the extraction solvent. A traditional decoction and a pulsed ultrasound-assisted extraction (PUAE), both 10 min long, were performed and compared. All the aqueous extracts proved to be rich in bioactive compounds. In particular, the total phenolic content (TPC) ranged from 148 to 237 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g of dried peels (DW), the radical-scavenging ability (RSA) ranged from 307 to 472 mg ascorbic acid equivalent (AAE)/g DW, the free ellagic acid content (EA) ranged from 49 to 94 µg/mL, and the ellagitannins (ETs) ranged from 242 to 340 µg/mL. For both cultivars, PUAE extracts had higher ET content and a lower EC50, while the decoctions had slightly higher TPC, RSA, and free EA amounts. Principal component analysis (PCA) highlighted the direct correlation between the ET content and the tyrosinase enzyme inhibition (lower values of EC50). These findings suggest the potential use of both these natural extracts as low-cost lightening and/or anti-browning ingredients exploitable in several formulations (e.g., cosmetics) or extemporarily usable.

The impact of lichens on the conservation of monuments, such as the World Heritage Site (WHS) of Cappadocian churches, presents a multifaceted challenge for conservators. Previous studies have shown that lichens can both induce deterioration processes of stone through their penetration into the substrate and chemical interactions as well as provide bioprotection, forming encrustations including calcium oxalate layers, which help mitigating the effects of weathering, reducing water penetration and eolian erosion. Evaluating the impact of lichens requires a comprehensive understanding of various factors, which include the type of rock substrate, the colonizing lichen species, the monument architecture, and the prevailing physic-chemical weathering processes. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of lichen colonization on Saint Simeon Church in the Paşabağı Valley (Turkey) with a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the interplay between lichens, microclimatic conditions, and the degradation of stone. Specifically, this study examines the influence of wind-driven rain (WDR) occurrences on lichen distribution and stone weathering to develop comprehensive conservation strategies. The results confirmed the previous observations and showed a prevalence of the protective role of lichens over their deterioration. The northwest side of the church, despite being heavily impacted by environmental factors such as WDR and freezing–thawing cycles, showed reduced deterioration due to extensive lichen coverage. In contrast, the northeast side, with lower lichen colonization, demonstrated more severe deterioration. These findings suggest that integrating the protective aspects of lichen colonization into conservation strategies can enhance their preservation.

This paper incorporates the process of entrepreneurial finance into an endogenous growth model with horizontal innovation (Romer J Polit Econ 98:S71-S102, 1990; Jones J Polit Econ 103(4):759-784, 1995b). To capture the market frictions existing in the financing of innovation, entrepreneurial finance is described as a process of \"search and matching\" between entrepreneurs proposing their innovative ventures and capitalists selecting and financing the most valuable projects. We determine the amount of resources devoted to innovation along the balanced growth path. The welfare analysis highlights the sub-optimality of the equilibrium innovative efforts due to search and bargaining frictions. We analyze the role of the policy maker to restore the optimality of investments in innovation.

Questions: What are the most relevant environmental variables influencing the distribution and the species richness of epiphytic lichens in heterogeneous areas of the Mediterranean region? What is the relative importance of substrate- vs. environmental-related variables? How do climatic and disturbance factors interact? Location: The study was carried out in the Liguria region (northwestern Italy). This is a complex region where steep environmental gradients occur over a few kilometres of longitude and latitude. Methods: Data on lichen species frequencies, collected on the basis of stratified random sampling, were analyzed using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) and DCA. Indicator Value Analysis (IVA) analysis was used to find indicator species for the environmental predictors. Results: In the survey area, epiphytic lichen distribution depends on both substrate- and environment-related factors. Climatic variables (in particular average yearly temperature and rainfall), anthropogenic pressures (particularly harvesting and atmospheric pollution), bark pH and texture were associated with the main axes of variability in the dataset. Mean annual rainfall is the best predictor for epiphytic lichen richness in the survey area. The particular effects of the Mediterranean region (e.g. the influence of forest fires) and of heterogeneous areas (the variability of diversity in relation to habitat) were pointed out. Several indicator species, closely linked to particular ecological conditions, were found for both substrate-and environment-related variables. Conclusions: The main variables involved seemed to be the same reported for other areas, but their relative importance and their spatial scale of action were in some cases different, probably due to the geomorphological and climatic heterogeneity of the survey area. The significant influence of climatic predictors and disturbance factors on epiphytic lichens was confirmed, suggesting that these organisms may be used successfully to describe ecological trends in natural environments, also providing practical information at ecosystem level. Nomenclature: Nimis (2003). Abbreviations: NMS: Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling. IVA = Indicator Value Analysis.