About Aspen Ecology
Lichens are the poster-child for neglected biodiversity. Few people care about or even notice them. But they don’t know what they’re missing!
Lichens play an outsized ecological role on our planet. They also serve as outstanding local environmental indicators. And as integral and inseparable symbioses between fungal and algal or cyanobacterial partners, they’re quite simply unique on Earth.
Aspen Ecology is an ecological consultancy based in East Anglia in the United Kingdom. Our name honours the aspen tree, which hosts an uncommonly large number of lichen species. We’re 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 their ecological importance.
We offer lichen surveys, consultancy, training and education. We collaborate with landowners, land managers, environmental agencies, professional ecologists, nature charities, public-interest groups, schools and more. Read testimonials about our work.
Our lichen education is often publicly available through nature charities. We also believe in sharing our lichen observations freely, including advice on how to identify and understand lichen species.
Lichens are all around you, but it takes a bit of help to see them clearly. Get in touch, and let Aspen Ecology illuminate the ecologically vital and curiously beautiful world of lichens for you. Be enlichened!
About Dr Anthony Speca
Anthony is the field lichenologist behind Aspen Ecology. A committed naturalist, educator and communicator, he is a knowledgeable guide and responsive advisor on the remarkable world of lichens.
Anthony admires lichens everywhere, but he feels especially motivated by the motto ‘local lichens for local people’. While he observes lichens actively wherever he travels, he keeps a special focus on his home region: VC25 East Suffolk and VC27 East Norfolk, the easternmost divisions of the British biological recording map .
Anthony enjoys exploring lichens with others, and helping them to recognise and understand these conspicuously beautiful, ecologically important, yet little-noticed life-forms. He relishes the challenge of explaining lichen complexities and puzzles in an accessible way.
Alongside his Aspen Ecology work, Anthony serves as County Lichen Recorder for Suffolk, and he is an active member of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society . He also serves on the Education and Promotion Committee of the British Lichen Society , and he teaches about lichens as a Biodiversity Tutor with the Field Studies Council .
Anthony was first inspired by lichens when he inadvertently focused his macro-lens on a gravestone alive with Variospora flavescens, instead of on the nearby wildflower he’d meant to photograph. Once he’d taken his first steps on the path to enlichenment, there was no going back!