 |
Algae inside fungal hypha
By Du et al. 2019
eLife e47815
|
Download Episode (8.4 MB, 12.1 minutes)
Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Erwinia tracheiphila
News item/Summary article
Takeaways
Partnerships and cooperation between otherwise free-living organisms is common in the natural world. Partnering with a photosynthetic organism is a smart approach, allowing the partner to get its energy from the sun and making gathering nutrients easier for the phototroph, and possibly offering protection as well. But in most partnerships, each partner stays separated by its own cell membrane.
In this study, a fungus and an alga grow well together, exchanging carbon for nitrogen, similar to how lichens operate. But after a month or so of co-culture, the algae apparently enter the cells of the fungus somehow and live inside it, happily growing and dividing, turning the fungus green.
Journal Paper:
Du Z-Y, Zienkiewicz K, Vande Pol N, Ostrom NE, Benning C, Bonito GM. 2019. Algal-fungal symbiosis leads to photosynthetic mycelium. eLife 8:e47815.
Other interesting stories:
- Skin microbe transplants could produce healthier skin communities
- Algae took genes from bacteria to deal with harsh conditions
Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment