Tales of Change Through the Lens of Lichens

The 2026 Northeast Natural History Conference took place in April in Burlington, Vermont. On Saturday, one of the first sessions, “Tales of Change Through the Lens of Lichens”, focused entirely on lichenology. This session was organized by Jeremy Howland and included four oral presentations.

Caroline Witherspoon (SUNY ESF, Syracuse, NY) presented “Highlighting Herbarium Gaps with Noteworthy Records of Usnea.” Caroline “found 3 significant records of Usnea (old-man’s beard) lichens. Two species were not known to have modern occurrences in New York, and 1 has never been known to occur in upstate New York.”

Jason Hafstad (NJ Natural Lands Trust, Trenton, New Jersey) presented “A Rarity Assessment of New Jersey’s Lichens.” Jason shared “the first attempt to assign rarity ranks to all lichen species documented from New Jersey.”

Jeremy Howland (CUNY, NY; New York State Museum, Albany NY) presented “Evidence for Large-Scale Epiphyte Declines in the NE Necessitate Incorporation into Invasive Species Management and Monitoring.” Jeremy shared that “epiphytes (have) declined due to increased fragmentation, local extinction, and air pollution. Now the surviving remnants of historical populations are increasingly at risk due to indirect impacts from invasive species.”

I presented “The Urban Lichen Toolbox”. I will discuss this presentation in a separate blog post.