![]() ![]() And no one had ever seen a structure remotely resembling a basidiomycete inside Bryoria. There weren't supposed to be any of those in there.īasidiomycetes, as a group, are famous for making most of the structures we call mushrooms, and rarely form lichens of their own ( only 50 of the 18,000 known lichens are basidiolichens). Suddenly, out popped an anomaly: genes from a very distant group of fungi – the basidiomycetes – were being expressed in both lichens, but vastly more abundantly in B. They ran the analysis a second time, but this time they expanded the range of organisms whose genes they surveyed. That could have meant yet another dead end had they not decided to try something new. But when they examined what genes were being used by each lichen, they found little difference. tortuosa all collected in western Montana. They had first hypothesized that the difference between the two lichens was simply that they were using the same genes differently, expressing some more and other less, and producing different amounts of proteins other biochemicals as a result. It was not the idea they set out to test, however. fremontii behave so differently despite their apparent genetic uniformity describe a radical new idea: that the fungus that builds the lichen superstructure is not the only fungus that has a hand in creating it. In a new study published in July in the journal Science, scientists who set out to understand why B. Now, it turns out the solution to both these mysteries may be one in the same. In the lab, scientists couldn’t seem to make the magic happen. In nature, making these structures seems to be a snap. ![]() The great mystery was this: when scientists took pure cultures of the two participants in a lichen – the fungus and the food-making partner - and mixed them together in the lab, they could almost never get them to produce the delicate, frilly, exquisitely crafted lichens that encrust rocks, trees, and soil on nearly the world over. In lichens with both, the fungus builds a special compartment called a cephalodium for the blue-green alga to inhabit. In some lichens, both green algae and cyanobacteria are present (Interestingly, when this happens, they do not seem to get along. The photosynthetic partner can be a green alga – an aquatic, early evolved green plant – or sometimes cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae. Lichens have long been defined as a relationship between two (and sometimes three) partners: a fungus that builds the “house” and an alga living inside it that makes the food through photosynthesis, the same way that plants win their daily bread. Meanwhile, scientists were puzzling over another, larger mystery. That’s because it contains large amounts of a toxin called vulpinic acid, a chemical that gets its name from its use in other lichens (notably Letharia vulpina) as a fox or wolf poison.Ĭlearly, something must separate these two species, in spite of DNA evidence to the contrary, but what that might be remained ineffable. tortuosa, on the other hand, was left untouched. fremontii into clothing or baked it in earthen pits into a black gelatinous mass, cooking or serving it with wild onions, blue camas bulbs, fish eggs, or Saskatoon berries. These differences were reflected in how the lichen was used by native peoples. fremontii never has these, according to Lichens of North America, perhaps the definitive (and heaviest) text on the subject. tortuosa contains structures called pseudocyphellae – in this case, long yellow slits where the stuffing of the lichen pokes out of its skin. fremontii is typically dark-chocolate brown, although there are color variations that overlap within both species. tortuosa is usually sallow green, while the B. There are a few other less momentous differences between the two lichens, called horsehair or treehair lichens. ![]() But in the real world, the stringy, lanky lichens that festoon conifers in the Pacific Northwest like Spanish moss are almost, but not quite, identical. Genetic tests of Bryoria tortuosa and Bryoria fremontii could not show any reason they should be separate species their DNA revealed no consistent differences. Two lichens were stubbornly stumping scientists. Credit: Jason Hollinger Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Bryoria fremontii from Peyto Lake, Banff, Alberta. ![]()
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