Wikipedia:WikiProject Fungi/Lichen task force/Todo

  • Photo of crustose lichens on a rock
  • Photo of the many branching arms of a fruticose lichen
  • Foliose lichen on a branch


Main pageTalkArticle alertsAssessmentArticle templateShowcaseResourcesPopular pagesNewslettersCollaborationTo do

Here are some of the many tasks that need doing:

  • Tag related articles. I think we've largely completed this, barring perhaps a few untagged species articles.
  • Find editors who have shown interest in this subject and ask them to take a look here. We've approached everyone who's written anything about lichens in the past few years.
  • Ensure higher-level taxa articles (genera, families, orders, classes) have up-to-date list of constituent taxa
  • Convert any old-style manual taxoboxes to Template:Automatic taxoboxes. Here's a list of those in Category:Lichen that still show a taxobox rather than an automatic taxobox.Clavulinaceae is still awaiting clarification from taxon specialists.
  • Ensure all taxon articles have all appropriate categories (see Featured/Good content in "Showcase" tab for examples of categorisation schemes)
  • These include: classification cat; lichen species/genus/family/order cat; location cat(s) (for species); year described in cat; taxa named by cat(s) (if available)
  • Review importance and quality of existing articles
  • Write articles on notable lichenologists. Getting rid of all redlinks in the list of Acharius Medal winners should probably be a priority
Other notable lichenologists missing articles: Thomas Douglas Victor Swinscow, Arthur Edward Wade, Oliver Gilbert (lichenologist), Frank Hatton Brightman, Brian William Fox, Peter Lambley, Rebecca Yahr, Ezra Michener, William Mudd, Reginald Heber Howe, Jr., Walter Watson (lichenologist), Léon Vouaux, Vitus Grummann, Oscar Klement, James Murray (lichenologist), Edit Farkas & László Lőkös see link, Heinrich Sandstede, Martino Anzi, Guy Nearing, Camillo Sbarbaro, Birger Kajanus, André Bellemère, Jacques Lambinon, Kenneth Andrew Kershaw, Ödön Szatala, Kerry Knudsen, Clifford M. Wetmore, Einar Timdal, Robert Lücking, Ferenc Fóriss, László Gallé, László Sántha, György Timkó, Greta Sernander
  • Add "year of description" categories to all existing lichen species and genus articles.
  • Add "taxa named by" categories to all existing lichen species and genus articles.
  • Add appropriate terms to Glossary of lichen terms
  • add citations to articles currently with 0 or 1 citation(s)
  • Articles for creation (feel free to add suggestions):
  • British Lichen Society
  • History of lichenology
  • List of lichenicolous fungi
  • lichenologist (right now a redirect to lichenology – perhaps a list of notable lichenologists?)
  • Photobiont
  • List of lichen photobionts – "about 156 species from 56 genera" (2019) doi:10.1007/978-981-13-8487-5_13
  • List of lichen products – about 1000 identified so far (our coverage can be seen in Category:Lichen products)
  • Lichens in popular culture
  • Plasticolous lichen
  • Lichen systematics – would include lichen taxonomy; there's a long and interesting history behind the scientific acceptance of the lichen as a composite organism, and how to classify such an organism. This article could outline that history, continuing up to the present-day molecular phylogenetic revolution and how that's changed systematics and our understanding of phylogenetic relationships
  • Sexual reproduction in lichens – both of the major lichen textbooks (Lichen Biology Nash et al. (eds.) 2008 and The Lichens Ahmadjian & Hale 1973) have meaty chapters on this very topic, so it's not like there's a lack of material to work with
  • Lichen resynthesis – 1500+ Google Scholar results; refers to the artificial reestablishment of lichens in under laboratory-controlled conditions by growing mycobiont and photobiont together
  • Lichens as bioindicators – a Google Scholar search of this phrase pulls up 17,000+ results
  • Lichens and air pollution – 10's of thousands of hits for this topic. Should be coordinated with above article to avoid overlap
  • Lichens and pedogenesis – the latter term refers to soil formation by the breakdown of rock, something saxicolous, crustose lichens are good at and a phenomenon that has been widely researched (5700+ hits on Google Scholar)
  • Lichen biogeography – lots of literature
  • Lichens and climate change - the news is not good!
  • Photosynthesis in lichens
  • Borderline lichen – is it a lichen or not? there's enough literature out there for an article about these atypical fungal/algal associations
  • List of fossil lichens – there's 167 known fossil lichens (as of 2017) doi:10.1038/nplants.2017.49
  • Evolution of lichens – lichenization has happened multiple times, so it's clearly a successful strategy
  • Pyrenocarpous lichens - term used a lot but what does it mean?
  • Reproduction in lichens – asexual as well as sexual reproduction probably deserves a dedicated article (i.e. separate from section in lichen)
  • Bipolar lichens – lichens that occur in both Arctic and Antarctic regions (should also be summarised in Lichen biogeography article)
  • Lichens of Antarctica – more than 300 species known in 2001 (Øvstedal DO, Lewis Smith RI. 2001. Lichens of Antarctica and South Georgia)
  • Lichens of the Arctic – about 1750 lichens known to occur there [1]
  • Marine lichens, Freshwater lichens – 700 species of the former and 200 of the latter, says a 2000 estimate
  • Mycophycobiosis – a symbiosis where a fungus lives in the macroscopic thallus of marine algae; technically not a lichen, but an article the encyclopedia should have and not illogical to have under the purview of this task force. See doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1988.tb00623.x and the French wiki article
  • Endolichenic fungus – a fungus that lives in the thallus of a lichen; many sources (including entire books) have been written about this topic
  • split out the article rock tripe (currently a redirect to genus Umbilicaria) into two articles: Umbilicaria the lichen-forming fungal genus, and "rock tripe" as a survival food. I think there's enough literature out there that the latter could become a good 1000+-word article by itself, which could then be summarized with a {{template|Main}} in the taxon article (which is anticipated to later become much larger...)
  • lichen microbiome – microbial communities within lichens, lots of research recently