Lichen algae: the photosynthetic partners in lichen symbioses

Sanders, William B.; Masumoto, Hiroshi

doi:10.1017/s0024282921000335

Cited by 62 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 459 publications

(465 reference statements)

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“…Both are part of what is possibly the most tolerant subaerial algal community, being able to thrive even in urban areas (Barkman, 1958). Furthermore, our results confirm Symbiochloris as a common player in the dermo-and phyllosphere (Škaloud et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2018) as well as other Trebouxiales, an order consisting of freeliving as well as lichen-forming green algae (Sanders and Masumoto, 2021).…”

Section: Diversity Of the Bark-associated Beech Microbiomesupporting

confidence: 75%

Tree size drives diversity and community structure of microbial communities on the bark of beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Dreyling

Schmitt

Grande

2022

Preprint

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Tree bark constitutes ideal habitat for microbial communities, because it is a stable substrate, rich in micro-niches. Bacteria, fungi, and terrestrial microalgae together form microbial communities, which in turn support more bark-associated organisms, such as mosses, lichens, and invertebrates, thus contributing to forest biodiversity. We have a limited understanding of the diversity and biotic interactions of the bark-associated microbiome, as investigations have mainly focussed on agriculturally relevant systems and on single taxonomic groups. Here we implemented a multi-kingdom metabarcoding approach to analyse diversity and community structure of the green algal, bacterial, and fungal components of the bark-associated microbial communities of beech, the most common broadleaved tree of Central European forests. We identified the most abundant taxa, hub taxa, and co-occurring taxa. We found that tree size (as a proxy for age) is an important driver of community assembly, suggesting that environmental filtering leads to less diverse fungal and algal communities over time. Conversely, forest management intensity had negligible effects on microbial communities on bark. Our study suggests the presence of undescribed, yet ecologically meaningful taxa, especially in the fungi, and highlights the importance of bark surfaces as a reservoir of microbial diversity. Our results constitute a first, essential step towards an integrated framework for understanding microbial community assembly processes on bark surfaces, an understudied habitat and neglected component of terrestrial biodiversity. Finally, we propose a cost-effective sampling strategy to study bark-associated microbial communities across large spatial or environmental scales.

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Section: Diversity Of the Bark-associated Beech Microbiomesupporting

confidence: 75%

Tree size drives diversity and community structure of microbial communities on the bark of beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Dreyling

Schmitt

Grande

2022

Preprint

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“…Algal symbionts, by contrast, have been identified at species level for only a fraction of the symbioses for which fungal data are available. Only about 100 species have been named (Sanders & Masumoto, 2021), but DNA sequencing is uncovering evidence that phototroph diversity has been greatly underestimated (Muggia et al ., 2020; Jung et al ., 2021). Even so, patterns of phototroph occurrence are well enough resolved at a broad taxonomic scale that it is possible to construct a coarse matrix of the intersections of most symbiont match‐ups on these two branches of the tree of life.…”

Section: Diversity and Ecology Of Lichen Symbiosesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary biology of lichen symbioses

et al. 2022

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Lichens are the symbiotic outcomes of open, interspecies relationships, central to which are a fungus and a phototroph, typically an alga and/or cyanobacterium. The evolutionary processes that led to the global success of lichens are poorly understood. In this review, we explore the goods and services exchange between fungus and phototroph and how this propelled the success of both symbiont and symbiosis. Lichen fungal symbionts count among the only filamentous fungi that expose most of their mycelium to an aerial environment. Phototrophs export carbohydrates to the fungus, which converts them to specific polyols. Experimental evidence suggests that polyols are not only growth and respiratory substrates but also play a role in anhydrobiosis, the capacity to survive desiccation. We propose that this dual functionality is pivotal to the evolution of fungal symbionts, enabling persistence in environments otherwise hostile to fungi while simultaneously imposing costs on growth. Phototrophs, in turn, benefit from fungal protection from herbivory and light stress, while appearing to exert leverage over fungal sex and morphogenesis. Combined with the recently recognized habit of symbionts to occur in multiple symbioses, this creates the conditions for a multiplayer marketplace of rewards and penalties that could drive symbiont selection and lichen diversification.

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“…Thus, for lichen-forming fungi (hereafter, the mycobionts), the identity and abundance of their associated photobionts constitute the trophic dimension of their ecological niche. Although more than 50 genera of algae and cyanobacteria are known to act as lichen photobionts (Friedl and Büdel, 2008;Sanders and Masumoto, 2021), the vast majority of the nearly 20,000 described species of lichen-forming fungi (Lücking et al, 2017) are associated with algae from the class Trebouxiophyceae (Friedl and Büdel, 2008). Among the Trebouxiophyceae, the species of the genus Trebouxia are the most common photobionts (Friedl and Büdel, 2008;Muggia et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Photobionts as Drivers of Diversification in an Island Radiation of Lichen-Forming Fungi

et al. 2022

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Speciation in oceanic islands has attracted the interest of scientists since the 19th century. One of the most striking evolutionary phenomena that can be studied in islands is adaptive radiation, that is, when a lineage gives rise to different species by means of ecological speciation. Some of the best-known examples of adaptive radiation are charismatic organisms like the Darwin finches of the Galapagos and the cichlid fishes of the great African lakes. In these and many other examples, a segregation of the trophic niche has been shown to be an important diversification driver. Radiations are known in other groups of organisms, such as lichen-forming fungi. However, very few studies have investigated their adaptive nature, and none have focused on the trophic niche. In this study, we explore the role of the trophic niche in a putative radiation of endemic species from the Macaronesian Region, the Ramalina decipiens group. The photobiont diversity was studied by Illumina MiSeq sequencing of the ITS2 region of 197 specimens spanning the phylogenetic breadth and geographic range of the group. A total of 66 amplicon sequence variants belonging to the four main clades of the algal genus Trebouxia were found. Approximately half of the examined thalli showed algal coexistence, but in most of them, a single main photobiont amounted to more than 90% of the reads. However, there were no significant differences in photobiont identity and in the abundance of ITS2 reads across the species of the group. We conclude that a segregation of the trophic niche has not occurred in the R. decipiens radiation.

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Lichen algae: the photosynthetic partners in lichen symbioses

Cited by 62 publications

References 459 publications

Tree size drives diversity and community structure of microbial communities on the bark of beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Tree size drives diversity and community structure of microbial communities on the bark of beech (Fagus sylvatica)

Evolutionary biology of lichen symbioses

The Role of Photobionts as Drivers of Diversification in an Island Radiation of Lichen-Forming Fungi

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