James D. Lawrey

James Donald Lawrey is a biologist, specializing in lichens. He is known for leading long-term monitoring projects, taxonomy and studies of the evolution of the fungi in lichens.

Career After the award of his doctorate in 1977, he was immediately employed by George Mason University and was promoted to full professor in 1993 where he remained throughout his career.

The focus of his research is fungal diversity and ecology and he particularly makes use of molecular phylogenetics, utilising DNA sequencing to identify fungi and assesses relationships between species. He is especially interested in the evolution of lichens and the fungi that form part of them. His work has provided new insight into the basidiolichens, focusing on the Dictyonema clade.

The genus of lichenicolous fungi Lawreymyces has been named in his honor, as have the lichen species Dictyonema lawreyi Dal Forno, Kaminsky & Lücking and Parmotrema lawreyi .

Publications Lawrey is the author or co-author of at least a hundred scientific papers and book chapters as well as a book about the fungi of lichens. His most significant include:

Diederich, P., J. D. Lawrey & D. Ertz. 2018. The 2018 classification and checklist of lichenicolous fungi, with 2000 non-lichenized, obligately lichenicolous taxa. The Bryologist 121: 340-425. Lücking, R., M. Dal-Forno, M. Sikaroodi, P. M. Gillevet, F. Bungartz, B. Moncada, A. Yánez-Ayabaca, J. L. Chaves, L. F. Coca & J. D. Lawrey. 2014. A single macrolichen constitutes hundreds of unrecognized species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 111: 11091-11096. James Lawrey (1984) Biology of Lichenized Fungi Praeger 418pp

By 2019 Lawrey had established two new orders of lichens (Lichenoconiales Diederich, Lawrey & K.D. Hyde and Lichenostigmatales Ertz, Diederich & Lawrey), two new families (Lepidostromataceae Ertz, Eb. Fisch., Killmann, Sérusiaux, & Lawrey and Lichenoconiaceae Diederich & Lawrey), eight new genera, and 37 species.