Micarea hedlundii
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: | Micarea hedlundii |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Coppins |
| 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: | Near Threatened. A very localised species (15 hectads in England from 2000, BLS 2025), but decline not clear. A member of the difficult to ID Micarea prasina group. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | A rare specialist. Occurs on lignum in shaded or humid situations in ancient Oak or Pine woods, typically on large hulks of dead wood, standing or dead, but also found on soft damp sandstone (sandrock) (BLS, 2025). Threats known on some sites and vulnerable to impacts of reduced or removed woodland grazing/browsing. |
| 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. Likely to benefit from diverse woodland structure, especially sheltered glades. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 2. Biological status assessment exists |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Produce a species dossier to collate information on current and historic sites, including results of surveys and assessment of threats and remedial actions.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
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 impacting the species and actions required to address them.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Advise and support site owners and managers to implement the site-level actions identified in A1.
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: Positive impacts on many threatened lichen species. Potential to bundle this with other grazing dependant woodland species.
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.