Structural and functional adaptation of the lichens of genus Umbilicaria in rocky habitats of South Karelia

The anatomic and physiological features of species of lichens Umbilicaria deusta and U. hyperborea were studied in South Karelia. The research took place in the tract of Devil's Chair in Petrozavodsk urban district and waste crimson quartzite quarry in Prionezhsky region. The morphology was estimated to be variable and the content of photosynthetic pigments was stable in the thalli of U. deusta. On the contrary, U. hyperborea showed variable photosynthetic pigment content, due to the significant changing all the indicators of photosynthetic apparatus, together with morphological variability. These allowed to reveal two ways in the adaptation of the studied Umbilicaria species: structural - due to the variation of the thickness of mycobiont layers in the species U. deusta; structural and functional - connected with the changes both in the anatomic structures of mycobiont and quantitative indicators of the photosynthetic pigments in photobiont in the species U. hyperborea