Lichens are symbiotic associations of fungi with microalgae and/or cyanobacteria, which are considered among the slowest growing organisms, with strong tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. There are about 400 genera and 1600 species of lichens and those belonging to the Usnea genus comprise about 360 of these species. Usnea lichens have been used since ancient times as dyes, cosmetics...

Sixteen epilithic lichen samples (13 species), collected from seven locations in Northern and Southern Victoria Land in Antarctica, were investigated for the presence of black fungi. Thirteen fungal strains isolated were studied by both morphological and molecular methods. Nuclear ribosomal 18S gene sequences were used together with the most similar published and unpublished sequences of fungi ...

Lichens are reputedly slow growing and become unhealthy or die in response to supplements of the usual limiting resources, such as water and nitrogen. We found, however, that the tripartite cyanobacterial lichen Lobaria pulmonaria doubled in annual biomass growth after a single 20-minute immersion in a phosphorus solution (K2HPO4), as compared to controls receiving no supplemental phosphorus. T...

Decreasing quality of forest habitats is among the major factors leading to a loss of epiphytic lichen diversity. However, there is little information about how this factor influences the diversity of terricolous lichens, which do not grow over living trees and could be less susceptible to such disturbances. In this work we describe the genetic diversity of Peltigera terricolous cyanolichens an...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to investigate in vitro antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer activity of the acetone extracts of the lichens Cladonia furcata, Lecanora atra and Lecanora muralis. METHODS Antioxidant activity was evaluated by five separate methods: free radical scavenging, superoxide anion radical scavenging, reducing power, determination of total phenolic compounds an...

Lichens are obligate symbioses between fungi and green algae or cyanobacteria. Most lichens resynthesize their symbiotic thalli from propagules, but some develop within the structures of already existing lichen symbioses. Diploschistes muscorum starts as a parasite infecting the lichen Cladonia symphycarpa and gradually develops an independent Diploschistes lichen thallus. Here we studied how t...

One of the most important issues in molecular dating studies concerns the incorporation of reliable fossil taxa into the phylogenies reconstructed from DNA sequence variation in extant taxa. Lichens are symbiotic associations between fungi and algae and/or cyanobacteria. Several lichen fossils have been used as minimum age constraints in recent studies concerning the diversification of the Asco...

Rare earth elements (REE) are known to be powerful environmental tracers in natural biogeochemical compartments. In this study, the atmospheric deposition of REE was investigated using various lichens and mosses as well as herbarium samples from 1870 to 1998 from six major forested areas in France. The comparison between the REE distribution patterns in organisms and bedrocks showed a regional ...

The structure of the associated bacterial community of bipartite cyanolichens of the genus Peltigera from three different environmental contexts in the Karukinka Natural Park, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, was assessed. The sampling sites represent different habitat contexts: mature native forest, young native forest and grassland. Recently it has been determined that the bacterial community associa...

Naturally occurring antagonists toward pathogens play an important role to avoid pathogen outbreaks in ecosystems, and they can be applied as biocontrol agents for crops. Lichens present long-living symbiotic systems continuously exposed to pathogens. To analyze the antagonistic potential in lichens, we studied the bacterial community active against model bacteria and fungi by an integrative ap...