Have been a bit quiet on here recently (social media/life overload perhaps?), but licheneering continues. Here's another example of the mega-rare-in-Scotland Catolechia wahlenbergii spotted on a glorious day scrambling Castle Ridge on Ben Nevis a cpuple of weeks back.

Very proud to have these hills as part of my extended office. One of the very best places in the country. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Torridon declared Scotland's newest national nature reserve

It is the first since Glen Coe and Mar Lodge Estate were granted the status in 2017.

bbc.co.uk

On a climbing trip in Sweden and pretty psyched to see this abundant Umbilicaria crustulosa, a lichen with a super limited distribution in the UK but all over the granite cliffs here where there's a bit of drainage

I'm out west this week surveying some patches of woodland on the Balmacara estate outwith the well known Coille Mhor SSSI. There's some amazing lichens about, like these lovely Pseudocyphellaria citrina and P. norvegica. #lichenGBI

Had a good day at Glasdrum NNR filling a few gaps in my knowledge of Scottish rainforest lichens with the help of Oliver Moore. This was the find of the day, the nationally rare jelly Leptogium hibernicum. #lichenGBI @plantlifeuk.bsky.social

Nice looking gig in Wales for any lichen ecologists interested in old mine sites jobs.miningremediation.co.uk/vacancies/60...

Project Ecologist (Wales) in Homeworker | Mining Remediation

View details and apply for this Project Ecologist (Wales) vacancy in Homeworker. Join Us and Make a Real Impact in Ecological Protection and Enhancement! Do you dream of working day to day as ...

jobs.miningremediation.co.uk

Found a lichen lifer today, Catolechia wahlenbergii, one of our rarest arctic-alpines. In Glen Nevis, VC97. Last official record from the area in an adjacent monad was 2003. What a beauty! #lichenGBI

I've been out on my first fieldwork with NTS this week looking at some of their woodland sites in Perthshire. Some nice old growth indicators tucked in there, including Lopadium disciforme (black fruits) and Mycobilimbia sphaeroides (brown fruits). Also Oliver Moore.

😍 Great to see some lichen love from April Windle of the @britishlichensociety.org.uk, plus our own Bill Bealey explaining how our LicheN app is used for measuring sensitivity to nitrogen pollution Featured on BBC News ⤵️ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 🧪

How lichen hold the secret to a breath of fresh air

An app uses lichen to help monitor air quality in places like the New Forest.

bbc.co.uk

I'll be spending a bit more time here from now on, pretty neat to have access to all the specimens in the RBGE herbarium

Ever seen Pseudevernia furfuracea fruiting before? I'm not sure I have, but here it is on Pinus sylvestris on the shore of Loch Gamhna, Rothiemurchus VC96

Big new start for me tomorrow - after a decade in the research world, for the next two years I'm going to be working with National Trust for Scotland learning what it takes to be an independent lichen surveyor.

Another one from the Tafraout granite. This looks superficially like some images of Acarospora strigata (I've never seen this in person so just having a stab...)

Some neat Psoras from near Tafraout in Morocco. The first I'm guessing is P. decipiens complex (I was wondering if P. savizcii given the pink squamules, but uncertain of the gypsum content of the soil). The second, looking very green after rain, I'm unsure. @annevankow.bsky.social any thoughts?

Ecography - Wiley Online Library nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

How the small host the small: cryptogam trait‐mediated structuring of Antarctic microarthropod communities

Primary producers shape terrestrial biodiversity, but most research has focused on vascular plants, while the role of cryptogams (mosses, lichens and algae) remains under-explored. Cryptogams dominat....

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Want to work on biodiversity in the Alps? ⛰️ We are offering several internship positions for the upcoming spring and summer in collaboration with the Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol 🕷️🦋🦇🐜🌼🦗🪱 biodiversity.eurac.edu/interns-want...

Interns wanted! - Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol

biodiversity.eurac.edu

PhD Position in Taxonomic and Molecular Diversity of Epiphytic Lichens, Bryophytes & Microorganisms at Future Forests, University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg’s Excellence Cluster Future Forests invites applications for a PhD position researching the taxonomic and molecular diversity of…

PhD Position in Taxonomic and Molecular Diversity of Epiphytic Lichens, Bryophytes & Microorganisms at Future Forests, University of Freiburg

The University of Freiburg’s Excellence Cluster Future Forests invites applications for a PhD position researching the taxonomic and molecular diversity of lichens, bryophytes, and associated microorganisms. Learn more about the project, tasks, requirements, salary, and how to apply by January 12, 2026.

agristok.net

This paper raises the possibility that lichens had evolved by the late Ordovician, contemporary with earliest vascular plants 🧪⚒️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The rise of lichens during the colonization of terrestrial environments

Evidence reveals Spongiophyton as one of the earliest and most widespread lichens in Earth’s history.

science.org

Great article about fieldwork in Iceland this summer (in Icelandic but Google Translate does a decent job). I was invited to join by lichenologist Starri Heiðmarsson who I met thanks to the @ukarcticoffice.bsky.social UK-Iceland Arctic Science Partnership Scheme heimildin.is/grein/25295/...

Hver vill búa á hrikalegu jökulskeri?

Í sumar gekk fjölþjóðlegur hópur náttúrufræðinga yfir Breiðamerkurjökul og upp í afskekktu jökulskerin Esjufjöll. Þau voru þangað komin til að skoða hvernig líf þróast og tekur land undan hopandi jökl...

heimildin.is

Nitrates can really mess up lichens, but Xanthoria seems to deal with it pretty well. This article suggests that hydration plays a role, with Xanthoria better able to cope with stress when moist and metabollically active. #lichenresearch www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Hydration-driven metabolic activity enhances the resilience of Xanthoria parietina (L.) Th. Fr. to nitrate stress

Lichens can utilise nitrogen in molecular, reduced, and oxidized forms, but they preferentially use ammonium due to low energetic cost of its assimila…

sciencedirect.com

A while ago I did a little experiment in getting a LLM to write some code to draw pictures of lichens. It was very apparent that it had no idea what it was doing. Looks like the situation hasn't gotten any better.

🧬Jacob L Steenwyk@jlsteenwyk.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Companies building frontier LLMs, please let me help you teach your models how to interpret evolution These are *so* wrong, but I know we can get it right. prompt: "create an image of a phylogenetic tree with the following topology (((A,B),(C,D)),E);"

Remote sensing of lichens with drones for detecting dinosaur bones: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Remote sensing of lichens with drones for detecting dinosaur bones

Brian Pickles and colleagues show that exposed dinosaur bones can be remote sensed with drones by virtue of colored lichens growing on them.

cell.com

I wasn't sure what I was going to get with this lumpy lecidioid thing (mica schist at ~800m VC96). I was half expecting a mutant Rhizo, but microscopy said otherwise.... #lichenGBI

Based on morphology and molecular data, sixteen new species are described as part of a study on the taxonomy of Protoblastenia in Finland. 🔗 doi.org/10.3897/myco...

#Fire avoidance & long-term population decline in the endangered Florida ground #lichen #Cladonia perforata within a pyrogenic habitat New #AJB research by @sterlingherron.bsky.social, Katherine Charton, Sarah Haller Crate, Stacy Smith, et al. doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience

UTTERLY SURREAL LOW ANGLE GLACIER SLIDE!! 😮😱 On Saturday at 11:00 am, a 2 km-long, 25 m-high, and 150-200 m in width section detached off the Ismoil Somoni Glacier (Tajikistan) and slid down the gorge! 🧊🌊 asiaplustj.info/en/node/354309 📽️ via @volcaholic1

There are 110 other posts in the vicinity and I took a closer look at about 40 of them. The original one I noticed still happened to be the best in my opinion, in terms of "terrain" and diversity.

In this paper, we show that photobiont diversity increases as lichens age. Interestingly, as the thallus grows, autosporine algae become more prevalent at the expense of zoosporine algae, likely because the latter play a key role in lichen establishment. 1url.cz/@Proto

Stereocaulon condensatum. This is a thing frequently associated with mine spoil so really nice to see it in a more natural setting - exposed soil flushed by mineral rich rock at ~800m VC96 #lichenGBI

Some very fine looking Trapeliopsis pseudogranulosa VC106 #LichenGBI