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Alithographica β Science Fact Friday: Lichen
#algae #biology #botany #classification #fungi #fungus #identification #illustration #lichen #mycology #nature #plant #science #scientific #shape #scientificillustration
Published: 2018-05-18 20:28:32 +0000 UTC; Views: 2952; Favourites: 85; Downloads: 28
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In the last Science Fact I spoke of lichens as an indicator species for air quality. Hereβs more about these weird little Frankenstein blends.
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Comments: 25
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your stuff is like Exotica here at dA,Β
not rare, i'd say more a Forgotten Realm
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Thanks! 
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your element is the Judge that holds sway without action--
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Very cool! I didn't know there were different names for the different shapes.
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Ironic! Just a few days ago my family was discussing what exactly lichen is, though it was a mixed confused blunder of moss and lichen and that one is dry and one is wet. Thanks for the clear-up!
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Aha! I seem to be very good at publishing these right after people have discussions or exams.Β Β
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Awesome, you even included the fact that some lichen can have two fungi!Β I have to ask though, I have often seen bright orange lichen and I keep wondering how it photosynthesizes.Β They grow on shrubs and appear to follow the Frucitose structure.Β Β
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Is this kind of like what you're thinking of?
I'll admit my knowledge of algae photosynthesis is kind of weak because algae aren't plants. In fact blue-green algae is a bacteria. Shit gets weird. But they all do have chlorophyll capable of photosynthesizing - but different chlorophylls can absorb slightly different wavelengths, and when you combine that with the wavelengths reflected by the pigments in the fungi it could produce that strong orange color. Maybe?? Just a guess.
Anyway there are true plants with non-green photosynthetic structures, i.e. Japanese maple. It just has a ton of pigmentation on top of the chlorophyll.
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That does resemble it, yes.
Ah, I see...Β Plants with red leaves were kind of in the back of my mind, and Japanese maples are arguably my favourite kind of tree 
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Haha nice one lmao
Whenever I grow up into a Real Adult Who Has a Yard, the first thing I'm going to do is plant Japanese maples. c:
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I'd love to get one as a bonsai tree, but those things are pricey! (And I have a less than perfect record of keeping bonsai trees alive...) :/
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I think that currently most of biologists treat that partnership as helotism - parasitism. Fungi have much bigger profits of this partnership and they suppress growth of algae. Interesting fact is that these fungi can be hosts to other fungi.
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Neat! I did notice that the fungi did seem to get the better deal here but didn't come across the helotism/parasitism description.
Thanks!
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My pleasure.
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I have to ask--can fungi thrive on bare rock?
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Lichens do grow on bare rock. Example can be map lichens.
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Do you think this is how the first fungi got a foothold on the world, by growing on bare rock, eventually turning it into soil?
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I didn't have much info about that on studies... I know that first land plants came to existence thanks to mycorrhiza, but I don't know how first fungi started to grow on land.
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They weren't the very first things to create soil, but apparently lichen did have a big hand in it later!
I don't know about fungi alone - most answers I can find are about lichen specifically.
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