Two Basidiomycete Fungi in the Cortex of Wolf Lichens (Current Biology)

Lichens have historically been treated as symbioses of a single fungus and an alga, but shotgun DNA sequencing is enabling a re-evaluation of this census. Tuovinen et al. report a third fungal species in the cortex of 95% of sampled wolf lichens. The findings suggest that lichens may not be defined by any one universal combination of organisms.