SERVICES
Lichens are all around you, but it takes a bit of help to see them clearly.
Aspen Ecology is dedicated to helping people understand, record, conserve and enjoy lichens.
Whether you’re restoring nature, looking after land, planning a new development, or teaching or learning about biodiversity, it’s vital to appreciate the beauty of lichens and to value the important ecological role they play.
Lichen Surveys
Lichens are neglected and under-recorded biodiversity. Let Aspen Ecology help you examine your site for lichens, whether to update old data, monitor significant species or – perhaps more likely – conduct your first lichen survey.
Lichen Consultancy
Lichens are an ecologically fundamental species group. From nature-recovery work and biodiversity conservation, to land management and development planning, let Aspen Ecology help you take the value of lichens into account.
Lichen Training
Lichens are unusual organisms that demand specialist study. Whether devoted amateur naturalists or professional ecologists, let Aspen Ecology guide you and your group towards a fuller understanding of lichens and their habits.
Lichen Education
Lichens are curiously beautiful, and quite simply unique on Earth. Let Aspen Ecology lead a lichen talk, walk, webinar, workshop or course for your organisation or school, and your participants won’t look at lichens the same way again.
THE ASPEN
Lichens have a special love of aspen trees.
Aspen Ecology honours the aspen, Populus tremula, one of the first trees to colonise Britain after the Ice Age. Its mild and multi-textured bark offers varied micro-habitats for lichens, and it hosts more species than perhaps any other British tree. Aspen can still be found across Britain, but it’s an uncommon tree in a country of lost forests. Like the lichens that love it, the aspen is neglected biodiversity.
Our logo reproduces the distinctive diamond-shaped lenticels that characterise aspen bark.
Image: Øyvind Holmstad, CC-BY-SA 4.0
OUTREACH
Take advantage of our public lichen outreach.
Aspen Ecology’s lichen education is often available to the public through nature charities, or through our own workshops and courses. Upcoming opportunities include:
LICHEN COURSE
ASPEN ECOLOGY
The remarkable but overlooked world of lichens is even more amazing under the microscope! Once you start to look closely at lichens, you start to wish you could look closely into lichens. Indeed, some lichens can only be reliably identified using microscopes. If you have a basic knowledge of lichens, and you’d like to take the next steps into their small but captivating world, then join us for our special six-session online course. No prior experience of microscopes is needed.
STARTS 24 SEPTEMBER 2026 : 10.00 – 12.00
Online
LICHEN COURSE
FIELD STUDIES COUNCIL
Lichens could be the poster child for neglected biodiversity. Even though they’re all around us, few people really notice them. But we should! Lichens aren’t just strange and beautiful, they also play an outsized ecological role. What’s more, they’re unique on Earth. This two-day course will cover all the lichen basics, including plenty of time observing lichens outdoors. You’ll build a solid understanding of lichens, and you’ll be equipped with the skills and knowledge to look more deeply into the lichens all around you.
3 & 4 OCTOBER 2026 : 10.00 – 17.00
FSC Epping Forest, Waltham Abbey, Essex
LICHEN TALK
First steps on the path to ‘enlichenment’
SUFFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST IPSWICH
Lichens are probably the most fascinating yet overlooked life-forms in the natural world. Few people even notice them, but they don’t know what they’re missing. Lichens are curiously beautiful, ecologically vital, and unique on Earth! This evening talk will leave you with a newfound appreciation for a secret world hidden all around you. But beware! Once you’ve taken your first steps on the path to ‘enlichenment’, you’ll start an exciting journey that you won’t want to end!
9 DECEMBER 2026 : 19.30 – 21.00
Museum Street Methodist Church, Ipswich, Suffolk
NEWS
Follow our news and learn about the lichens we see.
Lichens are symbiotic organisms, and lichenology is a community activity. We believe in sharing our field notes about lichens we see. Keep up with our news and socials, and learn lichens with us.
OUR WORK
Discover lichens with Aspen Ecology.
We do our best to make the hidden, complex and remarkable world of lichens visible, manageable and enjoyable. Read a little more about our work below.
LICHEN SURVEYS
Aspen Ecology has surveyed lichens in many important habitats in Britain, including ancient woodland, lowland heath, parkland, rocky coasts, traditional orchards, and heritage buildings.
We’ve conducted surveys large and small, from Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project sites to individual churchyards, and from private land to public nature reserves with statutory designations.
LICHEN CONSULTANCY
Aspen Ecology has advised clients from national charities managing lichens on medieval stonework and ancient trees, to a large housebuilder assessing the lichen value of trees in a traditional orchard.
We’ve also worked with smaller clients, such as a community trust hosting endangered lichen on their land, and farming families evaluating nitrogen impacts on lichens in ancient woodland.
LICHEN TRAINING
Aspen Ecology has trained volunteers for a range of organisations as small as local community nature groups, and as large as The Royal Parks.
Our training suits absolute beginners, as well as the more knowledgeable. We can help build skills from introductory ‘first steps’ to species identification skills and lichen microscopy.
LICHEN EDUCATION
Aspen Ecology has led public lichen talks, walks, workshops and courses in cooperation with organisations as varied as the Field Studies Council, Suffolk Wildlife Trust and The Royal Parks.
We have brought our lichen workshops into secondary-school classrooms and university lecture halls, and we also run our own online courses on lichens and lichen microscopy.
