hey you said that you study lichen, does that include growing them? my mum keeps trying to grow lichen off fallen branches and they just die. does anyone know how to grow them?
So my lab is one of many lichen lab groups trying to grow lichens and like, no, you really can't. Even with our super specialized equipment and knowledge and light and climate and humidity controls, we can only grow lichens for a short amount of time. Lichens function on a completely different time-scale than a lot of other organisms. They grow very slowly, and so adapt pretty precisely to where they are. And if something in their environment changes or they move to a new location, their first response is to go into a dormant state and wait for conditions to improve, and if possible, slowly adapt to these new conditions outside the scale of human observation. I am talking like, decades of slow progress. We also think that the microorganisms associated with lichens might play a more key role in their growth than we are aware of, but that is just a theory. Don't quote me on that. We still aren't entirely sure. Lots of folks are trying to figure this out in light of climate change and expanding habitat degradation--both to better understand lichen adaptability and ecophysiological responses to this rapidly changing world, and to house and cultivate endangered species before we lose them in nature.
Also as a side note, there's a cafe in my town that has a "moss wall" that is just Cladonia lichen dyed green (the kind you often find in craft stores). The waiter there was like "It's living! We spray it every day so it stays healthy!" and I was just like . . . girl ok whatever.
