Lichen Biodiversity and Near-Infrared Metabolomic Fingerprint as Diagnostic and Prognostic Complementary Tools for Biomonitoring: A Case Study in the Eastern Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

In the 1990s, a sampling network for the biomonitoring of forests using epiphytic lichen diversity was established in the eastern Iberian Peninsula. This area registered air pollution impacts by winds from the Andorra thermal power plant, as well as from photo-oxidants and nitrogen depositions from local and long-distance transport. In 1997, an assessment of the state of lichen communities was carried out by calculating the Index of Atmospheric Purity. In addition, visible symptoms of morphological injury were recorded in nine macrolichens pre-selected by the speed of symptom evolution and their wide distribution in the territory. The thermal power plant has been closed and inactive since 2020. During 2022, almost 25 years later, seven stations of this previously established biomonitoring were revaluated. To compare the results obtained in 1997 and 2022, the same methodology was used, and data from air quality stations were included. We tested if, by integrating innovative methodologies (NIRS) into biomonitoring tools, it is possible to render an integrated response. The results displayed a general decrease in biodiversity in several of the sampling plots and a generalised increase in damage symptoms in the target lichen species studied in 1997, which seem to be the consequence of a multifactorial response.