Lichens in cemetaries and a scientist who studies them

The last paragraphs of this article are brilliant...

> “It’s not going to cure cancer, it’s not going to bring world peace, two things that we desperately need right now,” she says.

“But I would argue that there is great value in understanding the world [and] how biodiversity works so that we can preserve it, which is an integral component of human health,” says Pringle.

She adds: “It’s not clear to me that the best way to repair the world isn’t sitting and watching lichens grow in a cemetery and telling the world about it.”

I've always thought that lichens were only found on hundreds- or thousands-of-years-old rock exposures. But, we have a deck table with a metal mesh top. It was last painted about 15 years ago, and is outdoors year round. A few years back I was amazed to see that flecks of lichen had colonized the table top. I guess they grow faster than I thought.

There's a subculture of people who clean strangers' gravestones, which often involves removing lichen. They are very particular about the tools and chemicals used during the cleaning. Some also reset broken stones.

You can see some before/after photos on Twitter (https://twitter.com/search?q=clean%20gravestones&src=typed_q...) as well as fast-motion videos on TikTok and Instagram. A few people research public records to share more information about the stones they are cleaning.

I always wondered what those are called. Interesting how in some way these live on the boundary between single- and multicellular organisms.

It's not specifically written in the article, perhaps because it's well-known, but the reason lichens are studied on gravestones is they have dates on. With those dates you can draw conclusions about growth rates as you have a 'maximum possible age'.

Original headline: A Cemetery’s Immortal Residents and the Scientist Who Studies Them

For a second I read liches, and was puzzled that they existed.