Lichenology: Current Research in India

Abstract

Lichens are one of the important constituents of the Indian flora. The vast topographical and climatic diversity has endowed it with a rich lichen flora, both in luxuriance and diversity. Despite intense effort in exploration and survey during the last five decades, our knowledge about lichens from different floristic regions of India is incomplete as many areas are still unexplored for their lichen wealth. The lichens are most valuable biomonitors to atmospheric pollution as they can be used as sensitive indicators to estimate the biological effects of pollutants by measuring changes at community or population level of an area. Lichen monitoring can be effective as an early warning system to detect environmental changes. The periodical monitoring and documentation of floristic data is necessary and useful for future biomonitoring and climate change studies. The lichens are peculiar organisms which produces unique secondary compounds mostly not known in other plant groups. Most of the secondary compounds produced by lichens have antibiotic properties. Recent research shows that our knowledge of lichen bioprospection is still very limited and exploration of lichens is likely to yield many more useful species for an unexpectedly wide variety of human needs and pursuits. There is a need for the more widespread use of such organism as bioprospection agents. The vast and diverse topographical area of the country exhibits rich diversity of lichens which provided a lot of scope to utilize these organisms for their potent biomolecules. The lichens may be a good source of unique phytochemicals; however, not much work has been done so far for their medicinal bioprospection and chemistry in India, probably due to their nonavailability in bulk and slow growth rate in nature. The culture of lichens will definitely help to exploit the medicinal treasures of this plant. Further investigations on biological activity of lichens as well as fast isolation method of lichen metabolites are needed to attract other researches in search of novel compounds beneficial for humankind.