Rebecca Yahr is an American lichenologist who works at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland. She was President of the

British Lichen Society The British Lichen Society (BLS) was founded in 1958 with the objective of promoting the study and conservation of lichen. Although the society was founded in London, UK, it is also of relevance to lichens worldwide. It has been a registered ch ...

from 2019 until 2021.

Early life and education

Rebecca Yahr was born in the United States and grew up near the Appalachian Mountains. She studied botany at University of California, Davis for her B. Sc. degree, awarded in 1994. She gained her doctorate from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 2004 for research into how the relationship between the fungi and algae within a lichen evolve over time.

Career

From 1991 until 1998 Yahr worked as a botanical research scientist, firstly for the California Native Plant Society and then at Archbold Biological Station in Florida, USA, where she began to be interested in lichens. In 2005 she took up a research fellowship at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, UK and from 2006 has worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh in Scotland. Her research concerns the evolution of lichens. She uses historical data and specimens,

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

and molecular biology. She also studies the processes that underlie the lichen

symbiosis Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...

. She has served on the editorial boards of The Lichenologist and the Edinburgh Journal of Botany since 2010. From 2019 until 2022 she was President of the

, having served as Vice President from 2018 until 2019. Since 2020 she has been the co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Lichen Specialist Group. She contributes samples to the Darwin Tree of Life Project. Yahr collaborated in the characterisation of ''Opegrapha viridipruinosa'' Coppins & Yahr (renamed ''

Alyxoria viridipruinosa ''Alyxoria viridipruinosa'' is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling) and lignicolous (wood-dwelling) lichen in the family Lecanographaceae. It is found in Europe, where it grows on hardwood trees. Taxonomy The lichen was first formally desc ...

'' (Coppins & Yahr) Ertz) and ''Phaeographis illitoraticola'' Lendemer, R.C. Harris & Yahr (now ''Phaeographis atromaculata'' (A.W.Archer) A.W.Archer).

Publications

She is the author or co-author of over 45 scientific publications and several book chapters. These include: * Gregory M. Mueller; Kelmer Martins Cunha; Tom May; Jessica Allen; James R. S. Westrip; Cátia Canteiro; Diogo Henrique Costa-Rezende; Drechsler-Santos; Aida Vasco-Palacios; Antony Martyn Ainsworth and others. (2022
What do the first 597 global fungal red list assessments tell us about the threat status of fungi?
''Diversity'' 14 (9), 736 * Steinová, J., Skaloud, P., Yahr, R., Bestová, H., Muggia, L. (2019) Reproductive and dispersal strategies shape the diversity of mycobiont-photobiont association in lichen symbioses. ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' 134 226-237. * Yahr, R., Schoch, C. L., Dentinger, B. T. M. (2016) Scaling up discovery of hidden diversity in fungi: impacts of barcoding approaches. ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B'' 371 (1702), 20150336 * Ellis, C.J., Yahr, R., Belinchón, R. & Coppins, B.J. (2014) Archaeobotanical evidence for climate as a driver of ecological community change across the anthropocene boundary. ''Global Change Biology'' 20 2211-2220. * Yahr, R., Coppins, B.J., Coppins, A.M. (2013
Transient population dynamics in the conservation priority species
''Cladonia botrytes''. ''Lichenologist'' 45 265-276. * Schoch, C.L., Seifert, K.A., Huhndorf, S., Robert. V., Spouge, J.L., Levesque, C.A., … and Fungal Barcoding Consortium. (2012) Nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region as a universal DNA barcode marker for Fungi. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 109 6241-6246. * James TY, F Kauff, CL Schoch, PB Matheny, V Hofstetter, CJ Cox, … and R Vilgalys.( 2006) Reconstructing the early evolution of Fungi using a six-gene phylogeny. ''Nature'' 443 818-822. * Dolan, R.W., Yahr, R., Menges, E.S. & Halfhill, M.D. (1999) ''Conservation implications of genetic variation in three rare species endemic to Florida rosemary scrub.'' ''American Journal of Botany'' 86 1556-1562.

Awards

In 1994 she was awarded a Young Botanist Award from the

Botanical Society of America The Botanical Society of America (BSA) represents professional and amateur botanists, researchers, educators and students in over 80 countries of the world. It functions as a United States nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership society. History The soci ...

. The lichen species '' Gyalectidium yahriae'' was named after her in 2000. In October 2023 the

Systematics Association The Systematics Association (SystAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1937 for the promotion of the study of systematics and taxonomy. It publishes research, organises conferences, and provides competitive researc ...

invited Yahr to give the society's annual Founders Lecture.

Personal life

Yahr is married to ecologist Chris Ellis and they have two children together.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yahr, Rebecca Year of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) Living people British lichenologists American lichenologists University of California, Davis alumni Duke University alumni American women botanists American botanists British women botanists American emigrants to the United Kingdom Women lichenologists