Habitat selection by chemically differentiated races of lichens.
The maritime European lichens of the aggregate species Ramalina siliquosa represent six chemical races. Where the races are sympatric they populate different habitats. Such intensive local ecological sorting of morphologically similar individuals accumulating different, highly specialized metabolic end products appears to be unknown in other plants.
D004463:Ecology; D005060:Europe; D008011:Lichens / Q000145:classification* / Q000378:metabolism