#313: Lichens and Gravestones

Following a previous post from April.

This Guardian article describes a Church of England project.

It is a Citizen Science project.

The article includes the following really useful information:

Graves are a haven for lichen, with more than 700 of the 2,000 British species having been recorded in English churchyards and cemeteries so far. According to surveys by the church, many sites have well more than 100 species on the stonework, trees and in the grassland.

This summer, the church is running a nature count in burial grounds across the country. 

Between the 8th and the 16th of June, they are asking people to visit their local graveyard, record which species they find and send them in.

A lichen is a complex life form, made up of a stable symbiotic association between a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria. They are very important as habitat for small invertebrates, and they stabilise soil pH as well as carrying out water and nutrient capture and cycling. They play a crucial role in the environment but many of their preferred habitats, including ancient trees, are under threat.

In order to take part:

To submit records during the week, the easiest way is to use a free app called iNaturalist and join the Beautiful Burial Grounds project. This doesn't appear to be ready quite yet.

The app enables you to take a photo and it helps with identification.

I've got this app myself.

See the previous project outcomes.

A useful guide to Lichens has been produced and can be downloaded as a PDF.

Top image: Gravestones in Lexham Churchyard, Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license.

#280: Graveyards - for the living as well as the dead?

I've previously blogged about the large area of land that is made up of roadside verges and is called 'soft estate'.

Another area of land which is sizeable, but broken up into separate pieces is made up of the land occupied by churchyards, graveyards and cemeteries. There are also crematoria with gardens of remembrance.

The Bishop of Norwich recently called for more churchyards to join the areas which are to be rewilded.

There are already projects targeting churchyards in this way.

The Wildlife Trust has a Living Churchyards project for example.

Some sensitivity is needed about fieldwork in such places, and there is also a small risk linked to the presence of unsafe gravestones. 

They can be a useful indicator of age of gravestones linked to the size of the growth in certain lichens, which can also indicate the degree of weathering.

A UCL Weathering resource on gravestones.

The form of weathering observed on gravestones is a product of four interconnected factors and how they vary both spatially and temporally (i.e., in space and time).

The four factors are:

• Material the gravestone is made from 
• Environment the gravestone is in 
• Process by which the gravestone is weathered 
• Form of the weathering on the gravestone

Image: Snettisham Churchyard, Norfolk - by Alan Parkinson, CC licensed