Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: A Reminder to Conserve Biodiversity: Lichens more complex (and even Cooler!) than Previously Thought.
August 1, 2016
Every day, new discoveries remind us that relationships among plants and species such as pollinators and fungi are more intricate and complex than we have understood. Assumptions about how species and ecosystems work are repeatedly found to be false. These findings demonstrate the importance of conserving as much biological diversity as possible. We must work to conserve and restore the life support systems that maintain life on earth.
A recent discovery about the structure of lichens once again highlights a fundamental but often forgotten truth: we do not know which processes and organisms are essential to ecosystem function and to the delivery of the
ecosystem services that keep us all alive. So we must protect and restore as much as we can.
Summary of Reports:
Lichens cover up to 6% of Earth's surface, by one estimate. Now, modern genomics is revealing that lichens are startlingly complex.
For some 140 years, scientists have understood lichens to be a symbiosis between a fungus, which provides a physical structure and supplies moisture, and a photosynthesizing alga or cyanobacterium, which produces nutrients. But others say it's time to throw the textbook understanding of lichens out the window.
Studies have revealed that many lichens are a threesome, with two fungi in the mix. The role of the second fungus, a yeast, is uncertain, and some lichen aficionados aren't convinced it is a true symbiotic partner. The third fungus is apparently part of an entirely new group of basidiomycetes, which separated from their closest known relatives 200 million years ago.
