Lichen Lecture with Dr. Frank Bungartz

10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Dr. Frank Bungartz will visit the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve to discuss his research on lichen throughout the Galapagos, Ecuador and the Sonoran Desert. He will be teaching how to identify specific species around the state. Dr. Bungartz has previously done research on lichen living on the boulders at the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve. 

Dr. Frank Bungartz is the Collections Manager of Lichens and Digital Data at the Lichen Herbarium of the Arizona State University Natural History Collections. His research focuses on biodiversity, evolution, ecology and conservation of lichenized fungi in the Sonoran Desert Region, Central America, and the Galapagos. He has been a contributor and editor to the Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region and has published numerous treatments of lichens from the Galapagos, where he continues to work on a comprehensive inventory of the lichen biota of this archipelago. Dr. Bungartz always had a strong interest in how lichens affect rock surfaces that they grow on. With his graduate student Guillermo Ortiz, he has recently been using photogrammetry to create 3D models of lichen communities from high-resolution macro photos to better understand the dynamics of biodeterioration and biomineralization caused by these organisms.