Agonimia octospora
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Fungus or lichen > lichen > Lichen |
| Red List Status: | Near Threatened (Not Relevant) [NT(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Agonimia octospora |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Coppins & P. James |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Woods & Coppins, 2012 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Widespread but fragmented population, with a very large population in the New Forest, but rare and threatened beyond. Found on shaded but reasonably well lit base rich bark in southern and western old growth woods |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Needs management targeted at maintaining well-lit conditions around host trees at sites outside the New Forest. The New Forest population is 'enormous' (BLS 2025) but confined to small numbers of trees elsewhere. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Part of a large group of species threatened by under grazing of old growth woodlands |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Healthy populations require extensively grazed minimum intervention pasture woodland, restoring grazing to woodlands is difficult and opposed by some policies |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Produce species dossier including collation of latest information on all known sites outside of the New Forest e.g. status assessment, habitat conditions. This will inform subsequent actions.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Survey sites with no recent information (identified through A1) to update status assessments, identify habitat management issues and identify actions required to address them
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 100 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: Will be informed and guided by A1
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Advise and support site owners and managers to implement the site-level actions identified in A1 and A2
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Advice & support
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.