Negaunee Integrative Research Center and Grainger Bioinformatics Center, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2021 Apr;30(8):1751-1754. doi: 10.1111/mec.15884. Epub 2021 Mar 26.
Historic and modern efforts to understand lichen diversity and evolution have overwhelmingly concentrated on that of the fungal partner, which represents one of the most taxonomically diverse nutritional modes among the Fungi. But what about the algal and cyanobacterial symbionts? An explosion of studies on these cryptic symbionts over the past 20+ years has facilitated a richer understanding of their diversity, patterns of association, and the symbiosis itself. In a From the Cover article in this issue of Molecular Ecology, Dal Forno et al. (2021) provide new insight into one of the most fascinating lichen symbioses. By sequencing cyanobacterial symbionts from over 650 specimens, they reveal the presence of overlooked cyanobacterial diversity, evidence for symbiont sharing among distantly related fungi, and utilize a comparative dating framework to demonstrate temporal discordance among interacting fungal and cyanobacterial lineages.
历史上和现代对理解地衣多样性和进化的努力主要集中在真菌伙伴上，真菌的营养模式在真菌中是最具分类多样性的。但是藻类和蓝细菌共生体呢？在过去的 20 多年里，对这些隐秘共生体的研究爆炸式增长，使人们对它们的多样性、关联模式以及共生本身有了更深入的了解。在本期《分子生态学》的一篇封面文章中，Dal Forno 等人（2021 年）提供了对地衣共生关系中最迷人的共生关系之一的新见解。通过对 650 多个标本的蓝细菌共生体进行测序，他们揭示了被忽视的蓝细菌多样性的存在，证明了在远缘真菌之间存在共生体共享，并且利用比较定年框架证明了相互作用的真菌和蓝细菌谱系之间的时间不和谐。
