Animals and Plants

Plant and Animal Habitats

The Manti-La Sal National Forest provides habitat for hundreds of plant and animal species. Along with deer and bear and ponderosa pine, the forest is well known for its lichen, too. Research on alpine lichens in the La Sal Mountains and the Mt Peale Research Natural Area on the Moab Ranger District was initiated by Dr. Steve Leavitt in 2018 and funded by Canyonlands Natural History Association and Brigham Young University. This work resulted in numerous scientific papers and several new species described. Material from the La Sal collections was subsequently used by lichenologists from Austria and Turkey to describe two more new species, including Lecidella ayazii that is now known from the Antarctic Peninsula to far northern Canada!