Allen Charles Skorepa (August 25, 1941 – September 4, 1998) was an American lichenologist, and a specialist on the lichens of Maryland.
Skorepa was born in Berwyn, Illinois, on August 25, 1941. Allen spent his childhood years in Brookfield, Illinois. He attended Southern Illinois University where he majored in botany with a minor in zoology; he graduated in 1965 with a B.A., followed by an M.A. Degree in Botany in 1967.[1] As a graduate student, he was active in surveying for lichens in southern Illinois.[2]
From 1967 to 1973, Skorepa was a Graduate Assistant at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a Staff Assistant in the Department of Botany at Southern Illinois University.[citation needed] He conducted environmental impact studies for the Tennessee Valley Authority and was involved in studying the impact of air pollution on lichens.[3]
Allen studied lichen identification at the University of Tennessee with his doctoral supervisor bryologist Aaron J. Sharp. In 1973 he was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee for his dissertation titled "Taxonomic and ecological studies on the lichens of Southern Illinois".[1] It included an important checklist on the macrolichens of the region.[4] During the summer of 1973, Skorepa collected lichens in Alaska.[5]
Skorepa worked closely with scientists such as Donald Windler and Mason Hale.[1]
In the summer of 1976, Skorepa, together with Arnold Norden and Windler contracted for two years by the Power Plant Siting Program of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to study the use of lichens as indicator organisms for the detection of pollutants. They collected over 3,000 specimens which were deposited in the Towson State University Herbarium (BALT).[6] In the December 1977 issue of Castanea, Skorepa et al. listed 242 species of lichens collected in Maryland.[7]
Further collecting yielded an additional 92 species making a total of 306 species of lichens for Maryland. These 92 species were listed in a 1979 publication that dealt mainly with substrate preferences of the various species.[8]
Skorepa died of a heart attack on September 1, 1998.[1]
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