Pat Wolseley is a botanist and illustrator, specialising in
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Bio at NHM /ref>
Patricia Anne Wolsely studied botany at
Somerville College, Oxford
Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...
and then was employed at the
Natural History Museum, London
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...
from 1960. She had always made illustrations of her research and later attended an art school. From 1966 until 1977 she worked at the
University of Malta
The University of Malta (, UM, formerly UOM) is a higher education institution in Malta. It offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, postgraduate master's degrees and postgraduate doctorates. It is a member of the European University Association ...
then returning to the Natural History Museum in London first as a Leverhulme Research Fellow and then as a Scientific Associate.
Wolseley studied aquatic plants for a decade and then moved on to lichens. This change was prompted by attending a course about lichens and she was attracted by their diversity and beauty. Her first research project about lichens, working with Peter James, was in the Celtic rain forest on the west
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
coast which resulted in adding 250 species to the list of those present in the area. She has subsequently worked at many sites in the UK and also other countries. The effects of the composition of the air on lichens, particularly sulphur and nitrogen compounds, is a focus of her work. The age of the substrate on which the lichens are growing provides information on past air composition, since species differ in their tolerance or sensitivity to compounds like
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
,
nitrogen oxides Nitrogen oxide may refer to a binary compound of oxygen and nitrogen, or a mixture of such compounds:
Charge-neutral
*Nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen(II) oxide, or nitrogen monoxide
*Nitrogen dioxide (), nitrogen(IV) oxide
*Nitrogen trioxide (), or ni ...
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air.
The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling environmental change, and its science ma ...
for measurements of ammonia in the air.
From 2007 she worked in the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network, a
citizen science
Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...
project that aimed to increase public interest in science through enabling them to record environmental data for scientists. Wolseley created the air survey for OPAL because of her knowledge about the relationship between lichens and air quality.
From 2006 until 2008 Wolseley was President of the British Lichen Society and in 2008 was made an Honorary member of the society.
In 2012, she featured in an episode of
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
's
The Life Scientific
''The Life Scientific'' is a BBC Radio 4 science programme, presented by Professor Jim Al-Khalili , in which each episode is dedicated to the biography and work of one living scientist.
The programme consists of an interview between Al-Khalili a ...
.
She has long-term collaborations on lichens in tropical forests in South-East Asia including Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, using lichens as indicators of environmental change considering air quality and logging. This has involved developing keys and checklists for the local lichen floras as well as identifying new species.
Publications
Wolseley is co-author and illustrator of a number of books. These include:
* Heather Angel and Pat Wolseley (1992) ''Family Water Naturalist: a practical expedition to the worlds of ponds, rivers and the sea shore'' Bloomsbury Books, 192pp
*
Francis Rose
Francis Rose MBE (29 September 1921 – 15 July 2006) was an English field botanist and conservationist. He was an author, researcher and teacher. His ecological interests in Britain and Europe included bryophytes, fungi, lichens, higher plan ...
and Pat Wolseley (1984) ''Nettlecombe Park: Its History and Its Epiphytic Lichens - An Attempt at Correlation'' Academic Journal Offprint from The Journal of the Field Studies Council, Volume 6, No. 1, November 1984. 50 pp, 14 figs
* Sylvia Haslam, Charles Sinker and Pat Wolseley (1982), ''British Water Plants'', Field Studies Council
* Pat Wolseley (1981) ''Field Key to the Flowering Plants of Iceland'', Hydra Books,
She is also the author or co-author of at least 30 scientific publications and book chapters. These include:
* Christopher J. Ellis, Claudia E. Steadman, Massimo Vieno, Sudipt Chatterjee and ten other co-authors including Pat Wolseley (2022) Estimating nitrogen risk to Himalayan forests using thresholds for lichen bioindicators. ''Biological Conservation'' Volume 265, 109401 DOI10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109401
* Wolseley, PA, James, PW, Theobald, MR and Sutton, MA (2006) Detecting changes in epiphytic lichen communities at sites affected by atmospheric ammonia from agricultural sources. ''The Lichenologist'' volume 38 161-176 DOI 10.1017/S0024282905005487
* Nimis, PL, Scheidegger, C and Wolseley, PA (2002 Monitoring with lichens - Monitoring lichens. Editors of NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Lichen Monitoring in Wales, August 16–23, 2000
* Wolseley, PA and Aguirre Hudson, B (1997) The ecology and distribution of lichens in tropical deciduous and evergreen forests of northern Thailand. ''Journal of Biogeography'' volume 24 327-343 DOI10.1046/j.1365-2699.1997.00124.x