Ecologically, lichens are important because they often occupy niches that, at least sometime during the season, are so dry, or hot, or sterile, that nothing else will grow there. For example, often the only plant growing on a bare rock will be a crustose lichen.
Over a period of perhaps many years, even centuries, the lichen gathers an extremely thin and fragile hint of a soil around it. As the lichen grows the soil-producing processes speeds up and takes place over an ever-larger area.. Eventually other more complex plants, perhaps a foliose or fruticose lichen, or mosses or ferns, or even some form of flowering plant, may take root in the modest soil and replace the crustose lichen.
Thus crustose lichens on bare rock often begin a succession of communities. And when your heel dislodges a patch of lichen from a rock, you may be undoing the patient work of centuries... Backyard Nature: Lichen
Date Submitted: December 25, 2009
Observer: Paul Lauenstein
Observation Date: 12/4/09
Observation Time: 3:30 p.m.
Observation Location: Gavins Pond Road opposite soccer fields
Plant or Animal? Plant
Common Name: British Soldier Lichen
Scientific Name: Cladonia cristatella
Compare this lichen to the pink earth lichen below taken at the same time in the same area.
More Information: Backyard Nature: Lichen
Previous or Similar Sightings: Pink earth lichen, 9/12/09