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Lobaria Lichen

Jan 24 2023/in Educational

The lobaria lichens such as lungwort and lettuce-lung play a crucial role in forest ecology. These lichens bear a superficial resemblance to human lung tissue, and so under the medieval medical belief known as “The Doctrine of Signatures”, they were used to treat pulmonary illnesses such as tuberculosis and asthma. Though the benefits of this belief proved to be only of the imagination, these lichens are in fact critical for the health of our planetary “lungs”, the temperate rainforests.

Lobaria lichens are able to accomplish the rare feat of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth but almost no organisms are able to extract it from the air. These lichens mine this precious nutrient from the atmosphere and when they fall to the forest floor and decay, that nitrogen is made available to the entire ecosystem. These ecologically critical lichens are most abundant in old-growth forests where there may be as much as two tons of lobaria per hectare, all working tirelessly to enrich and fertilize the entire forest ecosystem.

Lobaria lichens are declining globally due to logging and pollution. The coastal rainforests of BC represent a critical global stronghold for these remarkable and ecologically valuable organisms.

Licorice Ferns

Jan 20 2023/in Educational

The licorice fern is a dainty forest dweller primarily found growing on mossy rock faces and the trunks and mossy branches of old-growth trees, sometimes hundreds of feet above the ground in the forest canopy. Licorice ferns are especially abundant on the branches of old big-leaf maple trees as well. Great examples can be found in Mossy Maple Grove and Mossome Grove.

These ferns get their name from the flavour of their rhizomes, which when exposed and nibbled on have a stevia-like sweetness mixed with that taste of black licorice…and dirt. The rhizomes can also be boiled to make a licorice-flavoured tea. Next time you’re in a forest with a lot of moss and maples, keep your eyes peeled for these cute ferns.

Slime Mold

Jan 17 2023/in Creature Feature, Educational

Slime molds are among the oddest creatures of the rainforest. These frequently brightly coloured organisms represent an interphase between the multicellular bodies of plants and animals and the unicellular world of amoebas and other protists. These strange creatures live much of their lives as single-celled organisms but individuals eventually meld into a “super-cell” called a plasmodium, which is bounded by a single-cell membrane but contains many cellular nuclei.

This strange conglomerate being is observable in the forest as threads of brightly coloured “slime” creeping over rotting logs. This plasmodium is able to move through a process called “cytoplasmic streaming” as it hunts for microscopic prey along the forest floor. These plasmodiums can cover an area of 30 square metres despite being technically a “single” cell. When the food supply is exhausted the slime mold develops fruiting bodies to seed the forest with its spores.

Lab research has shown that despite lacking a brain or even a nervous system, slime molds appear capable of rudimentary learning, memory and problem solving. In one experiment slime molds even appeared to be able to learn from one another. These bizarre, contradictory creatures of the coastal rainforest are challenging our basic understanding of cognition, expanding our understanding of thought and memory.

Perhaps even more intriguing, the filamentous networks of slime molds are actually structurally very similar to the “cosmic web” of galaxies strung across the universe. Cosmologists have now started using slime-mold patterns to predict and understand the structure of the Universe and to help them map out the distribution of the enigma known as “dark matter”.

The careful hiker in the coastal rainforest will be on guard for inclement weather, unexpected cliffs, and possible bear encounters, but few will be prepared for the perils of drastic mind expansion that may result from an encounter with a slime mold.

Many old-growth forests where slime mold is found aren’t currently protected from logging. We encourage you to speak up for big trees and ancient forests in BC by sending an instant message to the BC government today.