“Lichens: Their Beauty and Their Message” with Dr. Ursula Goodenough and CUUPS MV

Once the leaves fall, our Vineyard woodlands become a tapestry of lichens. This morning, we will pass around local lichens living on oak branches and delve into their interiors, exploring how their fungi, algae, and bacteria collaborate and reciprocate to create new organisms. We will conclude by thinking of each lichen as a self-sustaining ecosystem, and ask how they might guide us in creating sustainable human-occupied ecosystems.
Collaborating with the lichens, members of CUUPS MV https://www.cuups.org will offer features of their Equinox service that was canceled by the Nor’easter two weeks ago.
Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University, now lives year-round in Chilmark in wonderful proximity to her daughters Mathea Morais (teacher at Charter School) and Jessica Sanseverino (teacher at Tisbury School) and her granddaughter Isabella Morais (Circuit Arts). She has published six research papers on lichens, is the author of The Sacred Depths of Nature www.sacreddepthsofnature.com, and is president of the Religious Naturalist Association www.religious-naturalist-association.org.