#yo if anybody is like a Lichen Person who may have some Niche Lichen Knowledge on this. pls let me know

[botanyshitposts]

Can you please explain how to separate lichens can fuse together? Thank you.

lichens aren't really single organisms-- theyre multiple organisms in a symbiotic relationship, specifically a fungus and green/blue-green/(very rarely) brown algae occasionally joined by a yeast or cyanobacteria. we only saw this a couple times in that class + the individual research project i did. what i hypothesize happened was that the fungus symbiont (physica if im remembering correctly, SUPER common where i am and pretty much on every other tree) had two spores from the same asexual parent fungus land on the same substrate a few inches apart. the two of them might have came into contact with slightly different symbionts despite the short distance, rare but not impossible, meaning that two separate physica species were formed but the fungal symbionts were genetically the same, and the two fungal symbionts just fused together and made it work once they came in contact with one another because of the genetic and environmental similarities. my professor's reaction at the time was 'huh...yeah they do that sometimes'. idk if that makes any sense or honestly if it's even possible that way because lichens really ARE just soups doing things, but that's pretty much the only explanation i can think of, to tell you the truth.

#yo if anybody is like a Lichen Person who may have some Niche Lichen Knowledge on this. pls let me know #i am curious now thinking about it #(i am also a Lichen Person but not professionally unfortunately) #lichens #plont asks