“Little Lovely Lichens”

Melissa Petruzzello: Welcome listeners. You've tuned in to Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Botanize! and I'm your host, Melissa Petruzzello, plant and environmental science editor here at Britannica. This show is about highlighting some of our planet’s overlooked organisms, the humble plants, fungi, and algae that fill our beautiful earth, and today we're going to hone in on something that may have only caught your attention a few times in your life: lichens. But whether or not you can even picture what a lichen is right now, or perhaps you're on the other end of the spectrum and are an avid fan of the little guys, like our guest, I'm sure this episode is going to change the way you look at the small things that might be clinging to the rocks and trees right outside your door. Lichens certainly are easy to overlook, but like all things, I feel that a little sprinkling of insight might just open your eyes and your heart. So to possibly ignite our passionate love affair with lichens, or at least fan the flames of biological curiosity, I have on Theo Llewellyn of Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and Imperial College London. Welcome Theo, so happy to chat with you!

Theo Llewellyn: Hi, thank you for having me.

Melissa Petruzzello: Theo is a lichen researcher and studies the evolution of certain chemicals known as secondary metabolites in lichens that actually help protect their DNA from UV radiation. Very cool stuff. Uh, but before we get too in depth with lichen biology, let's start at the very basics. Would you mind giving us a brief description of what a lichen is and what they look like? Maybe paint us a little mental picture?

Theo Llewellyn: Sure. So the traditional description of what a lichen is, um, you'll often hear people talk about a mutualism. So you have a fungus and an algae that form a symbiotic relationship. The fungus protects the algae and it controls things like water and gas exchange, and the algae does photosynthesis and provides sugars. And so that's the description that you'll still see in lots of textbooks and online, but the real definition of what a lichen is has actually changed in the past couple of years. And as we've started to delve deeper and really try and understand what's going on in the lichen, we're seeing that there are a whole bunch of other organisms that live in there. So you have, uh, communities of bacteria, other types of fungi. So we now more commonly within the scientific literature described lichens as a community of organisms, a self-sustaining community.

Melissa Petruzzello: Yeah, you know, I think I had in my mind the more traditional understanding, where a lichen consists of one or two fungi and then a photosynthetic partner, like a green algae. How interesting that they’re a whole, unusual assemblage with bacteria too. And they’re pretty common, right? Where are they found in the world?

Theo Llewellyn: Everywhere. So on land, they are literally everywhere on every single continent. You find them from Antarctica to the burning hot deserts of Namibia. And right down from sea level on cliffs, and sometimes even just below sea level, all the way up to the highest altitude mountain ranges and then right outside your door in the middle of London, for example. So everywhere, pretty much anywhere you look, you can find the lichen.

Melissa Petruzzello: Amazing. And tell us a bit about what we're looking for if we’re trying to spot the lichens around us. What can they look like?

Theo Llewellyn: So, lots of them look just a bit like a crust, either on the tree or on a rock. Um, if they're on the pavement, people often mistake them for a piece of chewing gum. And they can be brightly colored. So as you mentioned at the beginning, I'm looking at these chemicals in lichens, and these chemicals are already interesting because lichens produce a whole bunch of them and that often makes them really colorful. So especially the ones that grow on rocks, you can often find very bright oranges and yellows. So it kind of crusty looking thing that can sometimes be brightly colored.

Melissa Petruzzello: Beautiful. Yes, I was familiar with some orange or black, crusty-looking lichens where I grew up. I saw some really incredible, almost leafy-looking lichens in Argentina a few years ago, and the diversity of them is just really quite impressive. I did not know they could grow literally everywhere and I was just reading that near where I live, in the Everglades National Park, there’s around 550 species of lichens. I just had no idea. I’ve been trying to pay better attention since I first contacted you about this interview. I’m definitely guilty of not taking the time to notice the non-plants around me.

Melissa Petruzzello: So I just used the word “species” for lichen, but given that they are a complex, uh, community that you described, is “species” really the correct word? How are they named and classified?

Theo Llewellyn: So every organism within the lichen, within the community, has its own name. So you do commonly hear people referring to a lichen species, but what they're normally talking about is the species of the main fungus. So in almost all lichens, you have a main fungal partner, which we referred to as the “mycobiont,” and that produces most of the structure, most of what we actually see of the lichen. And so that's kind of why we normally refer to the lichen species as this, this main fungus, but yeah, the algae and the bacteria and the other fungi, they all have their own individual names.
Melissa Petruzzello: Okay, so they're still basically named with a convention we use for plants and regular fungi and algae. That's good to know! So, every time that these assemblages come together, do they form the same identifiable lichen? Like, is their body always coming together in the same sort of way? I'm interested to learn how they kind of form and grow.

Theo Llewellyn: Yeah, most of the time. So when you have the same species of fungus and algae that joined together, though, you can have some variation depending on where they're growing and the environment, they tend to form a similar structure that you can identify using a combination of morphology, chemistry, DNA. But you do sometimes have some cases, especially with the algae, where the species can survive on its own outside of the lichen. And in that case, they look very different. So one example is the Trentepohlia algae that form some lichen associations. And when they're outside of the lichen, they’re this kind of bright orange powder, which you don't really see when they're in the lichens. But those are kind of rarer cases.

Melissa Petruzzello: Wow, well, they sound pretty complicated to study. How did you get interested in researching lichens?

Theo Llewellyn: So, it was kind of luck, really. So in my, in my, I studied biology for my undergraduate degree and I studied that at UCL in London. And we didn't really have any sort of mycology or fungal classes, but for my third year I was allowed to do a year abroad, and I chose to go to the University of Barcelona. And when I was there, I had one free spot left for the modules that I could choose. And I remembered seeing, kind of going on hikes with my partners in the hills around Barcelona, loads of fungi, and I really didn't know anything about them and I knew that there was this kind of whole world that I, I'd never really learned about. So when I saw that there was a mycology module on offer in Barcelona, I chose it straight away. And then it kind of just snowballed from there. So I got really into the module, it was one of my favorite classes for my degree, and then when I came back to London, I decided to do my final thesis on lichens. And then from there I continued on to my master's and now my PhD.

Melissa Petruzzello: Wonderful! It's always fascinating to hear how someone's interests form. As you were speaking, I was thinking of my own, uh, educational career and I don't think there were any offerings of mycology at all, so I'm glad you had that opportunity and I'm glad you could cultivate an interest and appreciation for something generally considered, you know, a bit less charismatic. Um, I do have to ask, do you have a favorite lichen?

Theo Llewellyn: That's a tough question. I, there are, there are so many cool lichens. I mean, there are, so far we know about 20,000 species and there's probably a whole ton more that we don't know anything about! But if I had to choose one, there is one in you find also in the UK, not just in the UK, but that's where I've come across it. It's known as the golden hair lichen, and, uh, the Latin name is Teloschistes flavicans and it's, well, firstly, it's just stunning. It's this kind of bright, gold lichen that grows right, kind of directly on the grass. So within this bright green grass, you have this incredible contrast of this golden lichen. And I also really like it ‘cause I think it's got a very interesting story, interesting biology. So this species used to be really widespread in the UK and you'd be able to come across it relatively easily, but now you only really find it in the southwest of the UK and in areas that are protected and don't really have much influence of, kind of, construction or development. And so it’s kind of almost like a strange juxtaposition because this lichen, its habitat is in these really exposed, dramatic, harsh environments on the coast, but then it also seems to be really sensitive and it's declining a lot, and we, we we've kind of identified the need for it to be protected. So it's kind of tough, but also sensitive at the same time. And I think that's really quite poetic.

Melissa Petruzzello: Yeah, that sounds like! And how beautiful it sounds, I’m absolutely going to have to look it up when I'm finished talking with you. It sounds very striking. Um, I, as I said, I'm not so familiar with lichens, but I do have a favorite myself. Uh, it's called the Christmas lichen and it lives here in Florida and it shows as a, like a bright pink patch on palm trees here. It was one of the very first new nature things I noticed when I moved to Florida because the pink is really eye catching and, uh, you know, pink that's not a flower is not so common in nature, so I had to look it up and learned its sweet name. And as you said, lichens do come in such an impressive variety of colors and some are even used as dyes I learned. For our anthropocentric listeners, what are some of the ways that humans make use of lichens?

Theo Llewellyn: So one of the commonest ways, even though lots of people don't think about it because maybe it's not so common in, for example, the UK or the US, is as a food source. So as, especially in Asia, um, they're used quite commonly in curries and stews. I have a friend who lived and worked in, uh, Nepal, and she said that she came across it quite frequently there. And so it's either kind of, yeah, put directly into a stew or they're also sometimes used for spices. So the spice powder garam masala, which you often find it can be quite common in supermarkets, some of them you'll see, one of the ingredients is “stone flower,” which is, in fact, a lichen from the genus Parmotrema. And then apart from foods, they also, uh, so you mentioned that the dyes, um, from these useful chemicals, so these chemicals also have some really interesting other properties that are useful. So they've been used as poisons, things like poisons for keeping off pests. Uh, you have perfume lichens, which the, the chemicals are used in some really fancy perfumes. And then we're just now starting to see that they might be able to be used also in medicine. So they show antibiotic and antiviral properties, um, and so I think that in the coming years, that's going to be kind of a new frontier in lichen biology: the use of these chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry.

Melissa Petruzzello: Wonderful. Yeah, it sounds like they are, they make quite a diversity of useful chemicals in that assemblage. I'm going to have to add lichen stew to my bucket list, and I had no idea about garam masala! We use that quite a bit actually in our everyday cooking, I'm going to have to look it up on our, our spice bottle and see if it's in there. What about their ecological importance? I've heard it said that lichens are early colonizers and can actually help with soil formation. What, what can you tell us about that?

Theo Llewellyn: So lichens, they are such an integral part of the ecosystems on land, which many people don't realize. So lichens are extremely tough. They can survive under the harsh sun, kind of in these really exposed conditions. And as they have the algae, which is kind of almost the farm, constantly making this energy for them, they don't need soil so they can grow straight onto the bare rock. And then as they grow and they get larger and they kind of build up on top of each other, they start to decompose, and this kind of forms this very first, thin layer of organic matter. And then that starts to catch dust, and then plants start to grow on it. So bit by bit, you get this build up, this, we refer to it as succession, starting from just a completely blank canvas, and then you end up getting soils and then that can go on to form meadows or forest, things like that. So, yeah, they’re definitely this really important part of the first stages of a, of a new ecosystem.

Melissa Petruzzello: That's incredible. I love that these small, innocuous organisms are doing so much as the pioneers of new areas that they can survive where others can't and, uh, you know, are transforming the landscape on a small but important scale for other organisms to then inhabit. Um, and I like how you pointed out that they are so hardy and so tough, and yet they are not invincible and they actually can be, at the same time, somewhat delicate. So let's talk about that, and specifically about lichens and air pollution. Are lichens something like biological indicators of air quality?

Theo Llewellyn: They are. Lichens are actually one of the most famous cases of organisms being used as indicators of air quality. So when urban areas kind of started to expand and pollution got worse, people began noticing that lichens were, were disappearing, and you would find less and less species and you’d only really find them around the edges of the cities. And especially certain species of lichens would go extinct within the city very quickly. And so they started to realize that that was because these lichens are so sensitive to pollution. So they kind of, they don't really have much control about what gets absorbed into the, we call it the lichen “thallus,” the lichen body. So kind of anything that's in the air also gets incorporated into their body. And then they, they don't have a method of kind of getting rid of that. So bit by bit, it builds up and up. And so then you get these, we, we call them “lichen deserts” in the middle of the city where the air quality is just so bad that these lichens are unable to grow. And that's kind of where this relationship and use as a, as a bio-indicator started to come about.

Melissa Petruzzello: Oh, wow. Yeah, so it's a, it's a good sign if you have lichens in your area. And uh, is it a bad sign if, if they're still not in your area? Since they're small, is it hard for them to recover if air quality improves?

Theo Llewellyn: So there's, that's, that's really interesting question because there's not actually that much research that has looked at what happens when air quality gets better. So we've seen, and we're quite confident that when air quality gets worse, they decrease. Um, but we don't actually know that much about the recolonization, probably because kind of air quality only recently has, has started to get better with kind of more international laws and limitations on pollution. But it seems that it's not a direct relationship. So some species, uh, showing a really good recovery, maybe ones that are kind of able to disperse further and kind of come in from the surrounding landscapes. But then there are others that are still, despite air quality being so much better now than say 30 years ago, for example, in London, we're still not seeing these, these lichens. And the fact that lichens also in general, they grow very slowly, I think it will be quite a few years still before we see the community start to resemble how they were before air pollution was so bad.

Melissa Petruzzello: I see. So would you say the air pollution is one of themajor threats to lichens? Uh, what other existential threats do these little guys face?

Theo Llewellyn: Yeah, definitely pollution is one of the main ones. Um, but unfortunately as with many other species, there are a whole bunch of other threats. Habitat loss, I would say, is one of the major ones. Um, and especially given that they're these slow growing organisms, that if you lose the habitat, it will be, it will take them a long time to kind of get back there and then install themselves. And unfortunately, as they're kind of overlooked so often, um, you tend to get less protection of lichen habitats than you would of say, mammal habitats or bird habitats. And often they don't really match up as well. So we have lots of diversity of lichens in deserts, but people kind of don't really think about deserts as biodiverse places, and so they maybe don't get as much protection. So that's a major one. And then also things like, kind of general climate change. If habitats are getting hotter and drier, um, many lichens aren't going to be able to survive under those conditions. And then in certain areas, for example, in the UK, one of the main threats is, um, we have, we're struggling at the moment with ash dieback disease. So this pathogen that is killing lots of ash trees and ash trees are one of the, kind of most common, most important trees in the UK landscape. So if the lichens don't have the trees to grow on, then they're also going to go extinct.

Melissa Petruzzello: Oh wow. So many, so many threats for such small and hardy organisms. It's kind of disheartening. Climate change and habitat loss always seem to be up there on the list of anything I ask my guests about, but the ash dieback, that's an interesting problem for sure. We have, um, definitely some tree diebacks here from invasive species and also diseases, I'm sure they're similarly affecting lichen populations. You're a researcher at Kew, which is a renowned botanical institution famous, of course, for its gardens as well as its science and conservation efforts. Is there much focus on lichen conservation? And what does that look like?

Theo Llewellyn: So at Kew, uh, we're quite a small team, the ones that work on likens here, and our work is focused more on the evolution and the diversity of lichens and also how we classify them. Um, however we are strongly associated with, and most of us are members ourselves, of the British Lichen Society. And within the UK, that's kind of one of the strong points of lichen conservation. So the British Lichen Society, the BLS, they do really incredible work for protecting lichen conservation and identifying sort of lichen diversity hotspots. So one of them, we have these temperate rain forests in the UK, which you also find on the West Coast of the States, and so they've been surveyed to know which species are there. And then they also sometimes do transplant studies. So I was reading today about a project on the lungwort lichen where they are transplanting individuals, individual lichens, maybe from a tree that has fallen, and they're able to transplant it onto new trees and to kind of keep that population going. Uh, so yeah, though we’re not directly doing it at Kew, we’re involved in a lot of kind of partner projects that are doing great lichen conservation.

Melissa Petruzzello: Wonderful. Yeah, so there's conservation and then these restoration attempts with the transplants. That's, I'm glad those can work, it sounds like, and that somebody is studying that and helping to, to keep those little populations going. And as you mentioned, it sounds that ecosystem-level solutions and protecting habitat probably go a long way in keeping lichen diversity around. How would you respond to a skeptic or a cynic that doesn't quite see why it matters if those quirky little beings on trees and rocks fade away forever?

Theo Llewellyn: There's a quote from David Attenborough. I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it's something like “you can’t kind of be passionate about something that you don't know about.” And so I think the fact that people don't really know very much about lichens means that they are often overlooked and people aren’t as appreciative as of them as things like mammals or reptiles or birds. But for me, kind of every organism, just the fact that it exists means that it's kind of got this intrinsic value in itself. As we've, as we've talked about, they really are this key member of our ecosystems, and without them, you wouldn't kind of have this base layer of forming ecosystems on land and getting energy from the wider environment into the food chains. And so if they're not there that kind of bottom level has fallen away, and then you start to kind of lose the organisms up at the top that we care and that we know more about. And then I think also apart from that, they're just very beautiful. But I think as they’re small, you don't really appreciate that beauty as much kind of with the naked eye, but if you were to get up close and start to look at them in a bit more detail, you would see how beautiful they are, and then I think that that would kind of spark a, a joy and more of a connection between people and lichens.

Melissa Petruzzello: For sure. Yes. I think a recurring theme of, of these episodes is the importance and value of people slowing down and taking time to really notice what's around them. And that, as you said, and as Mr. Attenborough said, that if you know something, you start to love it and you can see its value, but it's, you know, you can't love what you don't know. And so I'm sure that you have peaked the interest of our listeners in lichens here. What would you tell somebody who wants to learn more, but isn't really sure where to start? How can a regular person cultivate an interest in their local lichens?

Theo Llewellyn: Well, the great thing about lichens is, as we said at the beginning, is that they're everywhere. So you don't need to be in the Amazon rainforest to be able to start to learn about lichens, you can go out of your front door and look down on the pavement. Uh, I would, I would recommend have a look at the bark of the trees around you. Uh, if, if you see any big boulders or rocks, have a look there. And I think the best thing, the best way to appreciate them is with a hand lens. If you've got to have a normal magnifying glass at home, or you can get these sort of 10 times magnification hand lenses for a couple of pounds or dollars on Amazon, um, and just kind of that extra bit of detail, looking through the hand lens, you'll start to see kind of the shapes of their thallus, you'll start to appreciate more their colors.

Theo Llewellyn: And then once you've kind of just started to look at what's around you. I I'd recommend people going on Facebook or online and having a look if there is a local lichen recording group. So, most countries in Europe and most individual states in the U.S. have official lichen societies or groups, but then within them, you have local communities that will go out or they'll share pictures online of things that they've found. Uh, one, one example of a, kind of a more international group is the group called Lichens Connecting People. And that's a, a really wonderful, supportive group of both kind of experts and beginners that post pictures online of lichens they've seen and they talk about them, they try and identify them. And it's really cool ‘cause we've even, there was a paper published last year of a brand new species to science that came about from someone putting a picture of this lichen and saying, “Hey, I found this weird lichen and I can't really identify it.” And the experts looked at it and said, “We can't identify it either.” And it ended up being a brand new species. So yeah, I think there's, there's lots of resources out there to get you started in lichens.

Melissa Petruzzello: Wonderful thoughts, how fun to hear that community science has led to the discovery of new species. That's kind of the dream! I would love to, uh, to identify something new, and it sounds like lichens are accessible if you just, uh, get yourself a hand lens and pop outside. Well, wonderful Theo. I have learned so much today. Thank you so much for joining me from across the pond. It's truly been a pleasure to have you.

Theo Llewellyn: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It's been great.

Melissa Petruzzello: Well, lichens certainly are fun and I can't wait to personally learn more and I hope our listeners are also inspired to get outside and take a look around. For Britannica's Botanize!, I'm Melissa Petruzzello and was joined today by Theo Llewellyn of Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and Imperial College London. You've just listened to episode 11, “Little Lovely Lichens,” which was produced by Kurt Heinz. Until next time, stay curious.

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