Cover Picture and Issue Information

This month’s cover image shows the bare‐bottomed sunburst lichen ( Xanthomendoza fulva (Hoffm.) Søchting, Kärnefelt & S.Y. Kondr.) growing in a tree trunk in a forest located in Siskiyou County along the border between Oregon and California, USA. It can grow up to 1 cm or may coalesce over large areas forming rosettes or colonies of small ascending lobes, like those in the image. This species can be found in several boreal and temperate regions of the world, both in semi‐open and shaded habitats growing over bark, wood or rocks. In the related article, Matos et al. design a novel framework to incorporate surrogates of lichen species richness, shifts in species composition and metrics of functional diversity collected by different sampling methodologies. Lichens, such as the species depicted in the image, have been used as ecological indicators of the effects of the major drivers of global change since the beginning of the industrial revolution to the present. The framework developed will enable future cross‐continental analysis of lichen biodiversity change from North America and Europe, enabling a more thoroughly comprehension of biodiversity response to global change. Photo credit: © Paula Matos