Brian John Coppins (born 1949) is a botanist and lichenologist, considered a world authority on crustose lichens^[2] and a leading expert on the genus Micarea.^[3]

Education

Coppins' interest in lichens was sparked during a field trip to the Scottish island of Handa while studying at Tunbridge Wells Technical School for Boys.^[4] While still an undergraduate at the University of Hull, Coppins was the co-author, with D. W. Shimwell, of an important study of lichen dynamics in managed heathland.^[2][5] After receiving his B.Sc. in 1970,^[6] Coppins became a graduate student at King's College London and studied lichen ecophysiology under the supervision of Francis Rose but he changed the focus of his doctoral studies to the taxonomy of Micarea species found in Europe.

Career

In 1974 was appointed as an ascomycete taxonomist in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). He spent his career there, retiring in May 2009. He received his Ph.D. in 1982 from University College London.^[1] His dissertation, supervised jointly by Francis Rose and Peter Wilfred James, was published in 1983.^[1] The work was based upon examination of about 3500 lichen collections and involved field work not only in the British Isles but also in Denmark and Sweden.^[7] His field research has been mostly in Scotland but he has also collected lichens in "Borneo, Chile, the Carpathians, Thailand, USA, Norway and Canada".^[1] He has contributed about 25,000 preserved specimens to the RBGE's herbarium.^[8] His co-collectors include Ursula Katherine Duncan, David John Galloway, Peter W. James, and Francis Rose.^[9] He also collaborated with in field studies on lichen distributions with Oliver Gilbert, Alan Fryday and Vince Giavarini.^[10]

Brian Coppins and his wife Alexandra "Sandy" M. Coppins have worked together for decades, making thousands of lichen surveys.^[8] They have also worked to increase awareness of the importance of lichen communities and to conserve "habitats such as the Atlantic hazel woods, Scottish native pinewoods, and alpine areas such as Ben Lawers and the Ben Nevis range".^[1] In 2009 they received The Plantlife Award for Contributions to the Conservation of Plant Diversity.^[2] In 2016 Brian and Sandy Coppins were jointly awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Scotland and, in addition, the Bob Saville Award from the Wildlife Information Centre in Bo'ness.^[8]

Awards and honours

Brian Coppins was the president of the British Lichen Society from 1988 to 1989. He was Senior Editor of the RBGE's Edinburgh Journal of Botany from 1984 to 2001 and continues to serve on the editorial boards of The Lichenologist (since 1983) and the Turkish Journal of Botany (since 2001).^[2][3]

He was honoured in the naming of the fungal genus Coppinsia,^[11] and the genus Briancoppinsia.^[12]

Selected publications

• Hawksworth, D. L.; James, P. W.; Coppins, B. J. (1980). "Checklist of British Lichen-Forming, Lichenicolous and Allied Fungi". The Lichenologist. 12: 1–115. doi:10.1017/S0024282980000035. 1980
• Boonpragob, K.; Homchantara, N.; Coppins, B.J.; McCarthy, P.M.; Wolseley, P.A. (1998). "An introduction to the lichen flora of Khao Yai National Park, Thailand". Botanical Journal of Scotland. 50 (2): 209–219. doi:10.1080/03746609808684918. 1998
• Coppins, A. M.; Coppins, B. J. (2002). Indices of ecological continuity for woodland epiphytic lichen habitats in the British Isles (PDF). London: British Lichen Society.
• Stofer, Silvia; Bergamini, Ariel; Aragón, Gregorio; Carvalho, Palmira; Coppins, Brian J.; Davey, Simon; Dietrich, Michael; Farkas, Edit; Kärkkäinen, Kati; Keller, Christine; Lökös, László; Lommi, Sampsa; Máguas, Cristina; Mitchell, Ruth; Pinho, Pedro; Rico, Víctor J.; Truscott, Anne-Marie; Wolseley, Patricia A.; Watt, Allan; Scheidegger, Christoph (2006). "Species richness of lichen functional groups in relation to land use intensity". The Lichenologist. 38 (4): 331–353. doi:10.1017/S0024282906006207. S2CID 86057118. 2006
• Ellis, Christopher J.; Coppins, Brian J. (2007). "19th century woodland structure controls stand-scale epiphyte diversity in present-day Scotland". Diversity and Distributions. 13: 84–91. doi:10.1111/j.1366-9516.2006.00310.x. 2007
• Homchantara, N.; Coppins, B. J. (2002). "New Species of the Lichen Family Thelotremataceae in SE Asia". The Lichenologist. 34 (2): 113–140. doi:10.1006/lich.2002.0382. S2CID 85429979. 2007
• Ellis, Christopher J.; Coppins, Brian J. (2007). "Reproductive strategy and the compositional dynamics of crustose lichen communities on aspen (Populus tremula L.) in Scotland". The Lichenologist. 39 (4): 377–391. doi:10.1017/S0024282907006937. S2CID 86143004. 2007
• Brand, M.; Coppins, B. J.; van den Boom, P. P.; Sérusiaux, E. (2009). "Further data on the lichen genus Basidia s.l. in the Canary Islands and Western Europe, with descriptions of two new species" (PDF). Bibliotheca Lichenologica. 99: 81–92.
• Ellis, Christopher J.; Coppins, Brian J. (2010). "Integrating multiple landscape-scale drivers in the lichen epiphyte response: Climatic setting, pollution regime and woodland spatial-temporal structure". Diversity and Distributions. 16: 43–52. doi:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2009.00624.x. S2CID 83698609. 2010
• Kelly, Laura J.; Hollingsworth, Peter M.; Coppins, Brian J.; Ellis, Christopher J.; Harrold, Paul; Tosh, James; Yahr, Rebecca (2011). "DNA barcoding of lichenized fungi demonstrates high identification success in a floristic context". New Phytologist. 191 (1): 288–300. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03677.x. PMID 21434928. 2011
• Ellis, Christopher J.; Eaton, Sally; Theodoropoulos, Marios; Coppins, Brian J.; Seaward, Mark R.D.; Simkin, Janet (2014). "Response of epiphytic lichens to 21st Century climate change and tree disease scenarios". Biological Conservation. 180: 153–164. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.046. 2014

See also

• Category:Taxa named by Brian John Coppins

References