Lichens engineer soil that eventually lets competitors replace them

Evidence

Umbilicaria is often the victim of its own success. Accumulation is its undoing. Slowly, slowly the lichens build up a thin layer of debris around them, perhaps their own exfoliations, or dust, or falling needles—the flotsam of the forest. The dusting of organic matter holds the moisture that the bare rock could not hold and gradually an accretion of soil creates a habitat for mosses and ferns. Through the laws of ecological succession, the lichens have done their work of laying the foundation for others, and now the others have come. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1006

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lichens colonize bare glacial rock over centuries where no soil can accumulate — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 984; Lichens recolonize postglacial forelands exactly as they did ten millennia ago — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1011; Epiphytic organisms can smother and replace a pioneer lichen — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1007

Broader Connections

• Epiphytic organisms can smother and replace a pioneer lichen #expands (0.82) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1007