Cities are increasingly seen as hotspots of evolutionary dynamics (Szulkin et al., 2020). However, the species that tolerate or even thrive in urban environments are a small subset of the local flora, fauna, and funga. Some groups of organisms have been affected more than others by urbanization. Lichens are one such group—an evolutionary life-style that experienced major declines, and in some cases near total extirpation—in cities due to a suite of environmental stressors, including air pollution, habitat loss, and climate change (Allen et al., 2019). In recent decades, however, lichens have re‐colonized some urban areas (Figure 1) following reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions (Timans et al., 2025). These reurbanized lichen populations are ideal models for testing evolutionary processes including parallel evolution and adaptation.