The Cryptobiotic World

Habitat, hunting ground, and food source. To life at the smallest scale, these are the ecosystem services provided by lichen micro environments. Inhabited by a whole community of meso and micro-fauna. From tiny invertebrates like springtails and mites all the way down to nematodes, tardigrades, protozoa and bacteria.

Lichen is a composite organism, a symbiotic partnership between fungi, algae, and cyanobacteria. Working cooperatively to survive, while also extending the ecological range of the component species.

This partnership is so successful that some estimates suggest lichen cover up to 8% of the Earth's land surface (J. Asplund and D. Wardle, 2016). That might strike you as a highball, but consider collectively the niches that they can be found in. The bark and branches of every tree. Growth permeating throughout the forest floor. The exposed surface of rocks, boulders, and bare cliff faces. Tundra to desert. All that space for colonization, that seems locally minor, but amounts to ecologically significant.

Focus stack of 111 images.

Image size 4331 x 3465 pixels.

Actual size ~9mm wide x 7.5mm tall.