Spores are tools for species' dispersal, but also impact human health. Fungal dispersal is often perceived as a passive dependence on water or wind, but by integrating perspectives from physics and biology, I am working to establish a different paradigm: fungi manipulate their physical environments to travel to new habitats. After landing in a new habitat, individuals must establish, and by collecting demographic data from a population of lichens growing in a cemetery near Harvard Forest, I am documenting how populations grow and whether the population biology of fungi is distinct from the biology of animals or plants. I am also using these data to test the hypothesis of immortality among filamentous fungi. To date, I have not found any evidence for aging among lichens, but a more explicit analysis of organismal integration across a lichen may change that view.