rjlittlefield wrote:. . . yep, it really is true that lichens grow about 1 mm per year.
What an excellent depiction of lichen growth! Also, a wonderful use of stereo. I recall, some years back, looking at lichens through a stereomicroscope, and wishing I could take pictures that looked like that. This is exactly what you've done here.
I was saddened to see that the bright red heart-shaped lichens on the right side of the old photo had disappeared in the meantime. Those were primarily what I had gone after, and it was only when I discovered "
Oh no! Gone!
" that I shifted attention back to the larger more convoluted bluish one.
Is that particular colony really gone? Or just substantially diminished, and not currently bearing two large fruiting bodies? At least the species continues to appear well represented in the vicinity.
Would you care to hear about a "goner case of 'gone'"?
A few years back, Sam--my botany professor collaborator--and I were working under a grant from a park district, doing research on former farm fields that the park had acquired. During one of our visits, we took some time off from our work and hiked out to a large, high-quality bog on a different area of park property. There is a trail to this bog, and a wooden, dock-like platform that juts out over the water, for observation by park visitors. To our surprise and delight, we found spectacularly diverse and well-developed lichen community, thriving on the railing of this platform.
While such a growth of lichen is probably not unusual in your region (Pacific Northwest United States, where the wind blows clean off the Pacific Ocean), it's a big deal in this area of Northeast Ohio. For those who don't know, lichens are sensitive to air pollution. This park is downwind from an industrial city, and the region's lichen flora was wiped out decades ago. That this colony of numerous species had become established, and prospered, was notable. From the size of the larger lichens, it had probably been growing for about 15 years. Sam and I decided that as soon as our grant-work was completed, we would study this lichen colony and see if we could tie it with economic changes in the region, the effect of clean-air laws, and the possibility that birds migrating south from lichen-rich regions to the north perched on the railing--the only perching spot spot for a considerable distance--and seeded it with lichen spores that had stuck to their feet. This would sort of study might prove valuable at several levels. It would likely have been publishable research, at least in a journal with a modest impact factor.
About two weeks later, Sam and I were walking the former farm fields with two park officials, when one of us chanced to remark on the remarkable lichen community and its value. The two park officials immediately looked at their watches, and then at one another. And in tandem, they adopted looks of resignation. "What's up?" I asked.
"We just sent a man out there with a pressure washer to clean up that platform," one of them said. "It's too late, he's done."
--Chris