Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

One lichen in Central and South America has at least 126 fungus member species

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

From From Phys.org::

A team of researchers with members from the U.S. and several South American countries has found that a type of lichen that grows in several parts of Central and South America consists of at least 126 species of fungi and possibly as many as 400. As the team notes in their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, until very recently, the lichen was believed to have just one species of fungus.

Lichen is an organism that exists as a partnership between a fungus and photosynthetic partner—it’s a photobiont. The main mass of any given lichen generally consists of fungal filaments which host algal cells. In the study in South America, the researchers looked at Dictyonema glabratum, which recently was divided into two separate genera, (Cora and Corella) with initial analysis suggesting 16 distinct species of fungi. More.

File:A small cup of coffee.JPG Maybe the next discovery will be that half of them aren’t doing anything much.

Comments
I think they all managed to find their way to my feet.Mung
July 3, 2014
July
07
Jul
3
03
2014
05:09 PM
5
05
09
PM
PDT

Leave a Reply