ReviewEcological indicator values and life history traits of terricolous lichens of the Western Carpathians

Plant indicator values are widely used in ecological studies, but they are not well developed for cryptogams, what prevents their application in some environments such as lichen-rich habitats. The aim of this study was to determine the ecological indicator values of terricolous lichens occurring in the Western Carpathians. A total of 271 lichen taxa from the eastern part of Central Europe in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria are listed and evaluated. Their known indicator values for light conditions, climate (temperature, continentality), substratum (humidity, soil reaction-pH, nutrients, eutrophication) were reviewed or modified, and original values were established for taxa with missing information. Besides the traditional ordinal scale, the index of variability was established to distinguish between generalists and specialists in particular applications. Our list further contains important species traits such as ecological strategies (growth and life forms, photobiont type, substrate, reproduction) and geographic values (geographical elements, threat, frequency) allowing applications in functional ecology and macroecology. Our database can be easily associated with widely used software for the analysis of vegetation data allowing the indication of ecological conditions in lichen-rich vegetation types in currently developed large-scale vegetation surveys.