kickapoo valley biology
Flora, Fauna, Fungi
The world is changing in many ways, and one of them is our human awareness of the kingdom of Fungi. We are increasingly aware that fungi, in many forms, is involved in all of life. From wine and beer to bread to medicine to the health of the soil we grow our food from, fungi are essential for all the rest of life. Now we are renewing our knowledge of life to include fungi. ‘Flora, fauna, and fungi’ is much more accurate than ‘flora and fauna’ to describe life on Earth.
For several years I have been considering and wondering about lichens. Lichens always are partly formed by fungi, and they are different from other life forms. Recently several people have written and spoken about fungi, including lichens, giving both the scientific community and the average person a very different understanding of what fungi are and what fungi do in the living world.
Lichens are just one of many forms fungi take to do their work in the world. Micro-rhizome networks that are everywhere the soil is healthy have been almost unknown to humans yet are vast, complex and have many functions.
I believe humans will continue to adjust their concepts of how life is arranged on Earth. Beyond fungi, the world is filled with archae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea, and protists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist and more creatures than we can imagine. Humans are a minuscule part of the vast diversity of life. We do not have a complete knowledge of the insects, animals, or plants, but there are many more microscopic forms of life than there are visible forms.
If you can’t be in the woods meeting fungi in person, start an exploration of what is being learned about fungi with Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life. Once the door to the mysteries of the Fungi Kingdom opens, you will find more to explore. Many people have been quietly learning about fungi, and now their ideas and work are in print https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/fungi. Some of you may have seen the beautiful movie https://fantasticfungi.com/ .
News sources run feature stories about the Fungi Kingdom, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/fungi-earth-secret-miracle-weapon. Humans are voraciously collecting and consuming the fungi in forests across the continent. Creative ideas about using fungi for clothing, packaging, new medicines, and more are being explored.
Some of our knowledge of fungi is very ancient. The ‘Iceman’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi who died 5,000 years ago and was preserved in ice in the mountains on the border of Italy and Austria was carrying a piece of fungi with a string through it. The fungi is known to have medicinal properties, and could also be used for making fire.
There may be many kinds of fungi for every plant and tree you see. Under the ground, inside the roots, and through bark fungi weave a vast and complex network supporting all other life. Think about the fungi as you walk along, and you will begin to notice them, popping up everywhere.
Fall is a good season to find many types of fungi. The leaves are gone, the weather is still mild and many fungi appear. I’ve found Conopholis americana (squaw root) in large patches in the fall.
Many more people are harvesting mushrooms now than ever before. Many areas have damaged soil, and many fungi are becoming rare or missing due to our taking so many from their place in the land. Please consider this if you are ‘hunting’ mushrooms. To remain viable most of the fungi need to be left in place. You may take what seems sustainable, but how many others will be taking from the same area? Good stewardship considers the situation for the plants or creatures in question, beyond personal expectations.
Take more pictures, take fewer fungi from the forest. Enjoy their beauty, sample a few, take a picture. They are busy working to keep the whole forest healthy for all of us.
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New Discovery in Lichen Partnerships
For some time lichenologists have known of two species of lichen that are made of the same algae and the same fungi partners, but appear very different. One has vulpinic acid, which makes the lichen bright yellow, the other is dark brown. Recently scientists began looking for more than one algae species in these lichens and found a mystery resident ; a basidiomycete yeast that lives in one species but not the other. Sorting through all the possible partners in a lichen seems daunting, but these scientists are up to the task. They hope to be able to induce lichen to form in vitro, so they can study up on some of their questions without collecting lichen from the wild. Did you know that lichen will not create themselves in an artificial environment? They know the difference.
Take a tour of beautiful lichen pictures while pondering whether those two lichens, one bright yellow and one brown, are really two separate species, and whether there could be more residents in any of those colorful Tiny Ones than we think, and whether they could be up to other behaviors and actions that we have no idea about yet.
It’s hard to believe that a living being that holds so still can be doing so much! Sequestering nitrogen from the air, absorbing poisons from our air pollution, making nutrients available to the trees they are attached to, making soil out of rocks, providing medicine for birds and animals in the form of antibiotics that the lichens make, insulating nests and dens, and much more. Lichen continue to quietly go about their work in the world, so slow down on your next walk in the woods, and look for the Tiny Ones on tree trunks and rocks. Put your ear down close to the ground or the bark and listen. Take a hand lens, and look closely. What’s going on?
Let me know what you find!
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Spring Lichen Sightings
It’s been an icy and variable winter, making for hard to travel trails much of the time. After a warm spell I hiked with two friends to Black Hawk Rock in mid April on dry trails the whole way. This year in April, the lichens are still mostly dormant and their colors are muted. They very much want to cover the whole surface of the rocky ledge, but humans also very much want to perch on these rocks, and their heavy steps damage the lichens so there are numerous bare areas too. There’s room for all here, so please watch your step and avoid the areas where lichens are living.
The most obvious lichens are on the rocks, but take time to look at the cedar and oak trees. They support many lichens.
These are a few of the beautiful lichens living on the cedar trees at the summit. Lichens on the soil, rocks on the ground and at the base of the cliffs were all quite subdued compared to the last time I visited. Photographing the lichens on the rock summit and certain trees along the trail and comparing the images over time will allow us to learn about how lichens are changing in growth, species changes and generally how healthy they are. This is not a controlled experiment! I am casually observing on an irregular basis. Anyone who has observations to share about lichens please send your information to me, to add to the KVR information on our ecosystem.
A few days after visiting Black Hawk Rock, I walked part way up Little Canada trail, stepping around the muddy spots. There were many small branches on the ground from the recent stormy weather. Some had been on the ground for a while, so the lichens were beginning to die and the fungi, such as Turkey Tail, and also mosses were well established on the branches. After windy weather is an excellent time to search for evidence of lichens living in the canopy of the forest. It is almost impossible to see them unless they have the misfortune of falling to the ground. There may be lichens in the canopy that are not growing near the ground so it is valuable to check those fresh twigs we usually walk by without noticing.
The above photo shows an old branch from the canopy on Little Canada trail. It is a good example of the transition between a living tree and lichens and the fungi and moss that begin to grow as the tree dies. Gradually the tree becomes moss, fungi and then eventually forest soil that other trees will grow from, and the lichen will again appear on the new tree.
This is an branch of lichen in the canopy of the forest on Little Canada trail. The Parmotrema and Physcia lichen will live in lower areas of hardwood trees too. This branch has been on the ground for at least part of a year. The bark as well as the lichens are deteriorating but it is still possible to see the large size and complex structure covering the branch. The numerous small brown cups with blue gray foliose areas is the Physcia, the large, convoluted, leafy- looking greenish lichen is the Parmotrema.
Finding lichens from the canopy of the forest is an important part of learning about how healthy the forest is, and understanding the whole of the dynamic processes that are essential for sustainability. Considering only the species we are interested in for our own use, or because we think they are beautiful has led to many complicated problems in the Web of Life. The Tiny Ones, of all varieties (anyone small enough we have to slow down, look closely to see, or can’t see at all) are an essential part of sustainable life on Earth. As we learn to recognize them, and understand what they do, we will be able to make better decisions about how to interact with the rest of the world, and not least, will have endless new questions to ask and wonders to explore.
If you’d like to share a Liken’ Lichen Hike this spring or summer, contact me anytime. And please share this blog to help the KVR share our love of Lichens!
Susan
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More lichen poetry and a bit of science
It’s hard to stop at just one poem. Now I’m looking for quotes about lichens, and more poetry too. So here is another lichen poem, by a trained biologist. This one goes deep into Lichen’s personal life. You might enjoy having a glossary of lichen terms nearby to get the most out of her verse, but even without that, I hope you are amused. She gives a fairly good synopsis of lichen life. Memorize the poem (why not?) and amaze your friends.
Lichen Poem by Caryl Sue (National Geographic/BioBlitz)
Their love can be a bit crustose
with areoles in bloom;
Their love can produce thread-like string,
called hyphae, when they plume.
Their love has colonized the Earth
from deserts to the ice;
These extremophiles exist
on sand, on trees, on gneiss.
Who could these star-crossed lovers be?
Why are they symbiotes?
They reproduce asexually
unlike us mammal folk.
A fungus, a mycobiont,
is one part of the pair-
It often lives all on its own:
itself, dead things, and air.
The other love, photobiont
can turn light into food;
The trick is photosynthesis
a skill that’s pretty shrewd.
Photobionts can be algae,
sometimes cyanobac;
Some lucky fungi can have both
at once, and that’s a fact.
A pair now caught between two worlds
not fungi, not algae
A composite organism
of one, or two, or three.
United now, this smart couple
sets out to reproduce;
Small spores or fragments of themselves
are set on winds, diffuse.
Some reproduce by using spores,
sped off to parts unknown.
These fungi that do not find mates
are doomed to die alone.
Soredia, isidia
are reproductive packs
In orange, or green, or yellow hues,
or purple, white, or black.
O foliose! O fruticose!
O squamulose, and more!
The fungi and the algae have
so many types in store.
Animals use them for their nests—
hummingbirds and turkey;
They’re almost all that reindeer eat
in the winter, murky.
People eat them as “famine food”,
They’re not a tasty treat.
They’re used in herbal remedies-
in dyes, and perfumes sweet.
So, once upon a time ago,
fungi, algae convince—
They fell in love, and they have been
lichen it ever since.
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Lichens and Volcanoes
The past several months watching Kilauea’s changes as she wakes up has been fascinating. I have friends who have a home in this area, so there is a personal interest in what is happening there. As we adjust to the losses and changes for the humans, we are also respectful of Pele’s part in creating the lovely land we know as Hawaii. She knows what she is doing, and over time the foundation she lays for all other life will again support the abundance we are familiar with. After Pele cools off, what happens? For an entertaining account of the volcanic process, read Krakatoa by Simon Winchester
As the lava cools, the new earth is immediately colonized by bacteria that comes floating in on air currents. Also carried by the air are tiny seeds, bits of soil from other places, and…….lichens! Lichens are the first life to colonize the new earth, beginning to add organic matter to the surface as they grow and die, and they also begin their work of moderating the surface temperature and moisture content. They provide shelter for the first insects, who also blow in on the wind, or crawl from adjacent areas. Then the birds and lizards come to eat the insects and lichens, and then the tiny mammals, snakes, and gradually the forest reappears.
Mt. St. Helens in Oregon, has changed dramatically after the eruption 35 years ago. This mountain was covered more in ash than lava, so many of the plants reappeared from under the ash; life did not have to restart from the tiniest bacteria and lichen spores.
Where there is any live topsoil nearby an area such as an industrial site or monocultured agriculture land, where no life has been for some time, the lichens are not always the first to live in those barren places. Seeds already are present, if not in the exposed earth they are nearby, and easily move into a barren area. But the lichens do appear on soil very soon, and when any trees have been growing for a few years, the lichens begin to appear.
The Hawaiian volcano process is a rapid “movie” of how life begins on new earth. Variations of that process occur everywhere, but are less easily observed. Check on science websites or local Hawaiian park sites or private blogs, USGS info, for news on how the land and life changes on the newly formed land.
Happy Lichen hunting!
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Birds, Flowers, Frogs, Bats…..Lichens!
It’s summer! We are in the season of Frog Walks, night time Bat Surveys, Birding Events, star gazing nights and more. The extravagant displays of color and sound, the always changing feast for the eyes is at it’s best in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.
Many of us review our familiarity with birds and plants we consider old friends, as they reappear each spring and summer. What have you learned recently, that is completely new, about the ecosystem you are part of? Now that you know at least some of the birds, flowers, trees, bats, mammals and even fungi and insects, what else could be here?
Learning about lichens and their relatives in the fungi world is a good place to start because most of us have not thought much about these neighbors. An essential part of the natural world as we know it is made up of fungi and LICHENS. Lichens influence and in some ways may control the environment. Lichens are everywhere- rock, tree surfaces, and on the ground. Lichens are at least as diverse as any other group of organisms. Lichens are present every day of the year. Lichens may be enjoyed as you canoe down the river, walk on a trail, or sit under a tree watching birds. Lichens are colorful, beautiful, endlessly varied and so easy to get close to.
Take some time to read this website’s information, look at the lichen books at the KVR while you relax in the Visitor Center, and go for a lichen hike with a friend, or give me a call and we’ll go visit Lichen Land to see who’s there this time of year.
Join the KVR Lichen Project this year. Learn about lichens; the world of nature that you think you know will expand dramatically. Becoming familiar with lichens opens a doorway to the ‘web of life’ that all are part of. We mostly see individual parts; the bird, the tree, the river….but none of those are what they are without all the others they relate to aand interact with. Lichens are quintessential collaborators, cooperators, adaptors. Many of the other residents you are familiar with are dependent on lichens to some degree. What can we learn about those relationships?
While the lichens moderates the climate for the tree it lives on, the tree moderates the climate for the earth under it and all that live there, and moderates the air space it occupies, affecting all the air interacts with, on so on the web spreads. How many more relationships like this surround us? What happens when those interactive webs are changed or destroyed? What can we do to steward the health and survival of webs of life we do not understand well? How can we learn to see these connections better, to foster our understanding of what is going on around us?
Learning about lichens and becoming familiar with them as part of the beautiful world you interact with on your hikes and other activities in the green world is one way to enlarge your perspective and through that, your effectiveness in caring for both the KVR and the larger green world around us.
Lichens are a bit harder to find in the depths of summer greenery. Look on exposed rocks especially along the river. Lichens as well as mosses and liverworts abound on river cliffs. The lower parts of tree trunks are always easy to observe and have many lichen species growing on them. Notice the different lichens on different tree species. There are also some lichen species that seem to grow on many tree species. What could be the reason some grow almost everywhere and others are very particular about their location?
Wet weather wakes up lichens. Their colors are bright and they are actively photosynthesizing and reproducing. Take a picture, and compare it with the same lichen at another time of year, when conditions are dry. The lichen may be almost unrecognizable as the same one you saw on a wet day.
Enjoy the lichens wherever you find them this summer. Post a message here if you see any lichens you’d like to share!
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Party Time in Lichen Land!
Here in Lichen Land, the tiny but vast community of lichens, bryophytes and fungi are having a party on the Wintergreen Trail. Cladonia and Peltigera, Stereocaulon and Candelariella, Xanthoparmelia and a small crowd of their crustose friends are sporting fancy apothecia (disc or cup that produces spores) in many shapes and colors. The place is decorated in the brightest colors-turquoise, jade green, yellow, white, black, gray, brown, rust, pale blue. A Cladonia first caught my eye; she was fringed and spangled with intricate weavings of pale green, crowned with a russet apothecia/cap perched on her tall slender podetia (stalk). Many other Cladonias waved jade colored cups, some fringed and some smooth edged. The Peltigera rufescens, that not long ago sported velvety gray thallus and dramatic, hooded, vase-like apothecia, now were a bit faded in places. But some of them had grown dozens of tiny, white rhizines (root like structures) from the underside of the thallus (the vegetative part of a lichen that contains the photobiant and mycobiont.
All this elaborate activity goes on within one inch of the ground. A wrong step by a human would destroy many years of growth. But you can join the party; pack a 6x or 10x hand lens, your camera, and just walk into Lichen Site 4. They’ll all be there. Once you step down the two stone steps and turn right, slow down. Stop. Take out the hand lens. Breathe and relax. Even though it’s a party down there, we need to slow down to join up with the Tiny Ones.
Have you ever hunted for 4-leaf clovers? Use the same type of gaze and attitude; you’ll be more successful with lichens because there are so many of them, you can’t miss them. Once a few are seen on the pine needle covered ground you will start to see the stalk-like podetia everywhere. Get down close to them, use your hand lens held close to your eye, then move closer or farther from the lichen to focus, keeping the lens close to your eye.
At ground level the elaborate, fringed structures make a fairyland scene. A few weeks ago, the podetia were straight and smooth pointed stalks. Now they sport cups, caps and fringes. The thallus (the leafy part) may have rhizines, brighter color and also more elaborate shapes. There are many very tiny lichen growing among the taller ones so be careful where you step! It truly is a forest in miniature, with a canopy, mid layer and ground layer of plants and animals.
There are several types and species of lichen sharing Cladonia’s forest. Peltigera sp. has been introduced earlier, but there are many more lichen here. On the edge of the narrow pathway, rocks with lichens barely discernible in the summer now are alive with color and texture. These are crustose lichens, and there are quite a few species here. Many
species of crustose lichen on the rocks at this site have produced apothecia. Look for dark spots in the light colored crustose lichen body. Most of the lichen on these rocks are white, gray, or blue-gray. There also are some black crustose lichen here. Look closely with your hand lens to check for apothecia on the black lichen; they are hard to see. How many different species of lichen can you find? These can be very hard to identify without a high powered microscope to see details, and chemicals to test certain reactions lichens may have. At this time, the Lichen Hunters are simply recognizing these are ‘crustose’ forms.
On the low, sandy cliff (the cliff is 2-3 feet high) at the top of this area, the walls have been decorated in turquoise, green and white. The colors are bright and clear. In the shadows under the rocky overhang, the gauzy, lacy texture of lichen mixed with moss, spider webs and falling grains of sand make a confusing scene. What is lichen, and what is sand grains, or spider webs?
As the sunbeams illuminated strands of turquoise and green against the dark recesses it seemed to be an endless mass of tangled threads. Much of the lichen here is probably a Stereocaulon sp. commonly called ‘Rock Foam’. There are several species, some of which, in the arctic, are food for caribou during famine.
Pixie Foam, a miniature Stereocaulon species, often grows where there is a high concentration of metals in the rock. Lichens are used all over the world to prospect for minerals by analyzing the mineral content of the lichen thallus. (From ‘Lichens of the North Woods).
How many species of lichens can you sort out, under the sandy ledge? There are also mosses, ferns and fungi here. How many different life forms can you find, of any kind? This is a rich, active place, yet we know almost nothing about the lives here, or what their place in the world might be.
This visit to Lichen Land left me feeling as if I’d crashed a party. The last time I was here, the lichen were growing podetia but were much smaller. Today I crossed the threshold of two stone steps into their world, and it had changed dramatically. Colors were brilliant, forms were elaborate; the lichens seemed more alive! They didn’t seem like the same lichens I’d seen earlier. It was quiet, but I felt there was music and shouting and dancing going on, in a tiny way. It felt like a party.
As I walked away I thought about how the earth, rock, sand, and trees, each have a community of lichen. They are not plants, they are not animals; they are simply something else. What do they weave for the web of life in the world as we know it? Why do they cover such a large part of the earth’s land surface? There are over a hundred species of lichens on the base of the trees in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. We don’t know how many different ones are in the canopy, or the soil or on the rocks here. Everything in Nature has a place and a purpose. The Lichen Hunters are exploring what that might be for the lichens in the Kickapoo. Come on out for a walk in the woods and help us learn about the Tiny Ones.
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Winter Lichens 3
Julie, Olga and I went out to view the white and wonderful woods after the big snow a couple days ago, and I, of course, had a secret agenda to also check on the Little Ones. As soon as the new snow warmed slightly the snow fleas were out hopping around. I knew the lichen would not be hopping around! But they do show their colors in the snow and I am still searching for new species. Each day in the forest brings the possibility of meeting a new lichen (as well as whatever other wonders appear whenever one stays in the woods a while). We are walking on Cutoff Trail. The ice has formed curtains along the rock walls, as it has almost everywhere this year.
No ice caves here, just a small cliff. The rock is mostly covered with liverwort, moss, fern; the lichen are small. One of my favorite trees, the river birch with its beautiful coppery bark, stands here.
The lichen like this tree too; the moist base has a colony of aqua blue lichen. Aren’t they beautiful on the red and silver bark? Since the names are not verified yet, I can describe them any way I wish, in this blog anyway! Don’t worry, names will be forthcoming by spring.
Turkeys flapped around in the treetops. The sun came out. On the south slope, snow in the branches began to melt, just enough to form liquid water at the edges of the snow on each branch. The trees were suddenly illuminated in diamonds of light. A few moments later as we walked away from the direct sunshine, the warming air simply made the clumps of snow in the branches fall off on our heads.
This is not a lichen, it is a fungus, making a little snow sculpture on the side of a tree.
While we move about so quickly and ceaselessly, the trees, moss, rocks and lichen quietly remain. The ice moves too. More slowly than us but faster than lichen, rock or tree; changing all those slow moving ones as it forms, grows and then disappears. The lichen and their rocks and trees will be here as we and the ice come and go. 
Remember to enjoy the small things in life.
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Winter Lichens Part 2
Remember this, from a week ago? A little frosty but still green and growing.
Today, January 10th, it was 5 degrees above zero and this is my lichen hunting outfit; every layer of Canadian ski clothes I can find:
And here’s Lichen Land now:
But as we know, the lichen are quietly waiting for the ice to melt. Meanwhile the ice is busy make beautiful patterns. I wonder what it looks like from underneath, where the lichens are?
Since it was so cold today, I went out to see what the lichens looked like on the hill behind our house. As I searched for them in the ice and snow I thought about how quickly they exchange their active life for dormancy. Another warm day and these ice covered lichen will be back to life in a few hours.
Below: very cold lichen
It’s fun to see what else is out in the woods besides the lichen.
This is the hilltop where these pictures were taken:
It’s a busy place. See all the tracks? Our coyote friends like to gather in this area and sing to us. Their tracks tell the story of what they do while here.
Sandstone catching the afternoon light
At the top of the ridge a dead tree trunk supported these fungus
After an hour there seemed to be more and more snow and less lichens, and it was getting colder so I went home. I went less than a quarter mile from the house and had a good adventure. What’s close to home where you live? If you’re out there and meet your own resident lichens, share them with us!
KVR Lichens 