III. ASSIMILATION AND RESPIRATION
A. Influence of Temperature
a. High Temperature. It has been proved that plants without chlorophyll are less affected by great heat than those that contain chlorophyll. Lichens in which both types are present are more capable of enduring high temperatures than the higher plants, but with undue heat the alga succumbs first. In consequence, respiration, by the fungus alone, can go on after assimilation (photosynthesis) and respiration in the alga have ceased.
Most Phanerogams cease assimilation and respiration after being subjected for ten minutes to a temperature of 50° C. Jumelle[863] made a series of experiments with lichens, chiefly of the larger fruticose or foliaceous types, with species of Ramalina, Physcia and Parmelia, also with Evernia prunastri and Cladonia rangiferina. He found that as regards respiration, plants which had been kept for three days at 45° C., fifteen hours at 50°, then five hours at 60°, showed an intensity of respiration almost equal to untreated specimens, gaseous interchange being manifested by an absorption of oxygen and a giving up of carbon dioxide.
The power of assimilation was more quickly destroyed: as a rule it failed after the plants had been subjected successively to a temperature of one day at 45° C., then three hours at 50° and half-an-hour at 60°. The assimilating green alga, being less able to resist extreme heat, as already stated, succumbed more quickly than the fungus. Jumelle also gives the record of an experiment with a crustaceous lichen, Lecidea (Lecanora) sulphurea, a rock species. It was kept in a chamber heated to 50° for three hours and when subsequently placed in the sunlight respiration took place but no assimilation.
Very high temperatures may be endured by lichen plants in quite natural conditions, when the rock or stone on which they grow becomes heated by the sun. Zopf[864] tested the thalli of crustaceous lichens in a hot June, under direct sunlight, and found that the thermometer registered 55° C.
b. Low Temperature. Lichens support extreme cold even better than extreme heat. In both cases it is the power of drying up and entering at any season into a condition of lowered or latent vitality that enables them to do so. In winter during a spell of severe cold they are generally in a state of desiccation, though that is not always the case, and resistance to cold is not due to their dry condition. The water of imbibition is stored in the cell-walls and it has been found that lichens when thus charged with moisture are able to resist low temperatures, even down to -40° C. or -50° as well as when they are dry. Respiration in that case was proved by Jumelle[865] to continue to -10°, but assimilation was still possible at a temperature of -40°: Evernia prunastri exposed to that extreme degree of cold, but in the presence of light, decomposed carbon dioxide and gave off oxygen.
B. Influence of Moisture
a. On Vital Functions. Gaseous interchange has been found to vary according to the degree of humidity present[865]. In lichens growing in sheltered positions, or on soil, there is less complete desiccation, and assimilation and respiration may be only enfeebled. Lichens more exposed to the air—those growing on trees, etc.—dry almost completely and gaseous interchange may be no longer appreciable. In severe cold any water present would become frozen and the same effect of desiccation would be produced. At normal temperatures, on the addition of even a small amount of moisture the respiratory and assimilative functions at once become active, and to an increasing degree as the plant is further supplied with water until a certain optimum is reached, after which the vital processes begin somewhat to diminish.
Though able to exist with very little moisture, lichens do not endure desiccation indefinitely, and both assimilation and respiration probably cease entirely during very dry seasons. A specimen of Cladonia rangiferina was kept dry for three months, and then moistened: respiration followed but it was very feeble and assimilation had almost entirely ceased. Somewhat similar results were obtained with Ramalina farinacea and Usnea barbata.
In normal conditions of moisture, and with normal illumination, assimilation in lichens predominates over respiration, more carbon dioxide being decomposed than is given forth; and Jumelle has argued from that fact, that the alga is well able to secure from the atmosphere all the carbon required for the nutrition of the whole plant. The intensity of assimilation, however, varies enormously in different lichens and is generally more powerful in the larger forms than in the crustaceous: the latter have often an extremely scanty thallus and they are also more in contact with the substratum—rock, humus or wood—on which they may be partly saprophytic, thus obtaining carbohydrates already formed, and demanding less from the alga.
An interesting comparison might be made with fungi in regard to which many records have been taken as to their possible duration in a dry state, more especially on the viability of spores, i.e. their persistent capacity of germination. A striking instance is reported by Weir[866] of the regeneration of the sporophores of Polystictus sanguineus, a common fungus of warm countries. The plant was collected in Brazil and sent to Munich. After about two years in the mycological collection of the University, the branch on which it grew was exposed in the open among other branches in a wood while snow still lay on the ground. In a short time the fungus revived and before the end of spring not only had produced a new hymenium, but enlarged its hymenial surface to about one-fourth of its original size and had also formed one entirely new, though small, sporophore.
b. On General Development. Lichens are very strongly influenced by abundance or by lack of moisture. The contour of the large majority of species is concentric, but they become excentric owing to a more vigorous development towards the side of damper exposure, hence the frequent one-sided increase of monophyllous species such as Umbilicaria pustulata. Wainio[867] observed that species of Cladonia growing in dry places, and exposed to full sunlight, showed a tendency not to develop scyphi, the dry conditions hindering the full formation of the secondary thallus. As an instance may be cited Cl. foliacea, in which the primary thallus is much the most abundantly developed, its favourite habitat being the exposed sandy soil of sea-dunes.
Too great moisture is however harmful: Nienburg[868] has recorded his observations on Sphyridium (Baeomyces rufus): on clay soil the thallus was pulverulent, while on stones or other dryer substratum it was granular—warted or even somewhat squamulose.
Parmelia physodes rarely forms fruits, but when growing in an atmosphere constantly charged with moisture[869], apothecia are more readily developed, and the same observation has been made in connection with other usually barren lichens. It has been suggested that, in these lichens, the abrupt change from moist to dry conditions may have a harmful effect on the developing ascogonium.
The perithecia of Pyrenula nitida are smaller on smooth bark[870] such as that of Corylus, Carpinus, etc., probably because the even surface does not retain water.