Teachers on Ice- Dr Rogers in Antarctica

I’m going to be spending a lot of time in Antarctica trying to hunt down lichens. But what are they anyway? And why on earth should I bother?

Lichens are all around you but they aren’t usually that pretty to look at and most people don’t even notice that they are there. Which is a shame really because they are quite incredible. They come in all kinds of dazzling colours and weird and wonderful shapes and sizes. They can be almost invisible to the naked eye or up to 3m long. If you manage to get a look at one down a microscope you will never see them in the same way again! Lichens grow pretty much everywhere from rocky shores to mountain summits, and polar icecaps to steamy tropical forests. They manage to hold on and survive in places nothing else can. You are likely to see them clinging to the roof tiles of houses or on walls or gravestones.

The most amazing thing about lichens is that they aren’t just a single organism. They are made up of a very close partnership between two very different species-an algae and a fungus. Think ‘Ant and Dec’ or ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. The algae provides food or energy for the lichen by photosynthesis. The fungus provides protection for the algae, it may even manufacture sunscreens to protect the algae it lives with. Together they make a winning team which allows them to live in places other organisms wouldn’t dream of surviving. They will be pretty much the only things alive, other than us, in the area we are going.

Another amazing thing about lichens is that they are very sensitive to the environment. This means we can get a really good idea of how healthy the atmosphere is and what effects we humans are having on the environment simply by checking out the lichens in an area.

You can find out much more about lichens here through the National History Museum. Go on, you know you want to. There is even a society dedicated to these little critters, the British Lichen Society. They can tell you all kinds of ways you can get more involved with these little known super-heroes.