lichenous liaisons

Blogger no longer allows me to switch back to the "classic" version, so this is my first attempt at writing a blog entry with the new one, and anything could happen. I'll stick to the important info:

My latest feature is about the evolution of lichens. Recent findings suggest they are more recent than thought (which is disappointing from an astrobiology perspective as it means they didn't pioneer the vegetation on dry land), but their evolution was also more complex than thought, with the symbiotic link being made and broken and remade in some lineages, which called for the lovely title (which I nicked from the press release, and amazingly nobody else did that before me):

Lichenous liaisons

Current Biology Volume 30, Issue 18, 21 September 2020, Pages R1009-R1012

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Ophioparma, a lichen formed by a fungus and green algae, growing on rocks in the Alaskan tundra. The red spots are fungal fruiting bodies that release meiotically derived ascospores. (Photo: © Matthew P. Nelsen, Field Museum.)