Buellia asterella used to occur in isolated patches of dry grassland from Italy to England and southern Norway. It appears to have had its centre of occurrence in the central German Mittelgebirge. Today it is thought to be extinct in all but three or four localities globally (in Norway and Germany). The only British site was last confirmed in 1991 and two of the four German sites documented in the last 30 years were visited in 2015 and the species could not be re-found. The immediate causes for its disappearance appear to be outright loss of grassland habitat to agricultural and urban development, eutrophication (through fertilizer drift, the sites being surrounding by rapeseed fields), shrub and grass encroachment and trampling of sites where suitable habitat would otherwise still exist.
We assume for this species a generation time of 30 years, estimating the time for population reduction record and application of criterion A as 90 years. We estimate a population decline of 80% between1950 and 2040 (Dahlberg & Mueller 2011). Buellia asterella is Critically Endangered based on A4c at the global level.
Assessor/s: Spribille, T., Bilovitz, P., Printzen, C., Haugan, R. & Timdal, E.; Reviewer/s: Nadyeina, O. & Dahlberg, A.; Contributor(s): Aptroot, A. & Scheidegger, C.
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