Arthonia astroidestera
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: | Synarthonia astroidestera |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Nyl.) Ertz & Van den Broeck |
| 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: | Rare-occasional, widespread but fragmented population in SW England. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Likely to respond to general habitat management but this has to be targeted at the right parts of the right sites. Dependant on veteran smooth barked trees in humid well lit old growth woodlands, threated by increasing shade in unmanaged pasture woodlands. |
| 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): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Relatively widespread in SW GB. 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: Review habitat management at extant sites and assess suitability for the taxon.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 100 sites
High priority sites: all
Comments: Positive impacts on many threatened lichen species. Potential to bundle this with other grazing dependant woodland species
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Deliver advice to site managers following Action 1.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Advice & support
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 100 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.