Tag Archives: alga

Lichens hiding a secret in plain sight for 150 years

Lichens - Letharia vulpina, left, and Bryoria tortuosa - courtesy photos
Lichens – Letharia vulpina, left, and Bryoria tortuosa – courtesy photos

Here’s another take on an item we posted last week . . .

Dating back nearly 150 years, the textbook example of symbiosis has been lichen, which relies upon a mutualistic relationship between an alga and a fungus.

Now, that well-known dualistic relationship is being challenged.

Researchers at the University of Montana, working together with colleagues from Austria, Sweden and Purdue University, have found that some of the world’s most common lichen species actually are composed of three partners — not the widely recognized two.

Read more . . .

How a guy from a Montana trailer park overturned 150 years of biology

Lichen on blue rock along American River, Folsom, CA
Lichen on blue rock along American River, Folsom, CA

Here’s a fascinating story from The Atlantic magazine.

Remember learning about lichens in high school or college biology? Turns out, you learned it wrong. Sort of. And a persistent fellow from Montana proved it . . .

In 1995, if you had told Toby Spribille that he’d eventually overthrow a scientific idea that’s been the stuff of textbooks for 150 years, he would have laughed at you. Back then, his life seemed constrained to a very different path. He was raised in a Montana trailer park, and home-schooled by what he now describes as a “fundamentalist cult.” At a young age, he fell in love with science, but had no way of feeding that love. He longed to break away from his roots and get a proper education.

Read more . . .