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A Method for Estimating the Dry Weights of Crustaceous Saxicolous Lichens

One of the basic difficulties in experimental investigations on the physiology of crustaceous lichens is that of obtaining an adequate estimate of sample size. The only method used by previous workers (Bachmann, 1922, 1923; Reid, 1960a-c) has been to trace the surface area of the sample onto paper. It is obvious, however, that this method is inadequate. It is hard to trace accurately any but a perfectly plane area, and sample size on a surface area basis cannot take into account variations in thickness of the thallus, both within a species and between different species. Thus it is difficult to compare the physiology of different samples or species of crustaceous lichens by this method. It is also difficult to compare results from crustaceous species with results from non-crustaceous species because sample sizes of the latter have conventionally been on a dry weight basis. Indeed no true comparison between these growth forms appears to have been made. It is therefore clear that there is a need for a reliable method of expressing the sample sizes of crustaceous lichens. This paper describes a method of estimating the dry weights of crustaceous species on siliceous rocks.