Pat Wolseley

Pat Wolseley
Born	Patricia A. Wolseley
Alma mater	Somerville College, Oxford
Occupation	Botanist

Pat Wolseley is a botanist and illustrator, specialising in lichen.

Patrician Anne Wolsely studied at Somerville College, Oxford and then was employed at the Natural History Museum, London. She had always made illustrations of her research and later attended an art school.

Wolseley studied aquatic plants for a decade and then moved on to lichens. This change was prompted by attending a course about lichens and she was attracted by their diversity and beauty. Her first research project about lichens, working with Peter James, was in the Celtic rain forest on the west Wales coast which resulted in adding 250 species to the list of those present in the area. She has subsequently worked at many sites in the UK and also other countries such as Thailand. The effects of the composition of the air on lichens, particularly sulphur and nitrogen compounds, is a focus of her work. The age of the substrate on which the lichens are growing provides information on past air composition, since species differ in their tolerance or sensitivity to compounds like ammonia, nitrogen oxides or sulphur dioxide. She collaborates with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology for measurements of ammonia in the air.

From 2007 she worked in the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network, a citizen science project that aimed to increase public interest in science through enabling them to record environmental data for scientists. Wolseley created the air survey for OPAL because of her knowledge about the relationship between lichens and air quality.

In 2012, she featured in an episode of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific.

Publications

Wolseley is co-author and illustrator of a number of books. These include:

• Heather Angel and Pat Wolseley (1992) Family Water Naturalist: a practical expedition to the worlds of ponds, rivers and the sea shore Bloomsbury Books, ISBN 978 1854710376 192pp

• Francis Rose and Pat Wolseley (1984) Nettlecombe Park: Its History and Its Epiphytic Lichens - An Attempt at Correlation Academic Journal Offprint from The Journal of the Field Studies Council, Volume 6, No. 1, November 1984. 50 pp, 14 figs ISBN 978 1851531653

• Sylvia Haslam, Charles Sinker and Pat Wolseley (1982), British Water Plants, Field Studies Council

• Pat Wolseley (1981) Field Key to the Flowering Plants of Iceland, Hydra Books, ISBN 978 0906191422

She is also the author or co-author of many scientific publications. These include:

• Christopher J. Ellis, Claudia E. Steadman, Massimo Vieno, Sudipt Chatterjee and ten other co-authors including Pat Wolseley (2022) Estimating nitrogen risk to Himalayan forests using thresholds for lichen bioindicators Biological Conservation Volume 265, 109401

External links

• "The Life Scientific, Pat Wolseley". BBC Radio 4. 14 August 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
• Lichen expert Pat Wolseley takes part in the air survey with a local group on YouTube