[contingo]

I'm skeptical that this discovery amounts to a "new type of coexistence". Fungi that are facultatively lichenized (having growth forms that include or exclude algae) have been known about for a long time, as have various stages of sophistication of the lichenized condition. I can find references dating back to at least the 1980s that describe various kinds of facultative lichenization. The authors' insistence that the symbiosis is not a lichen just because the mycobiont (fungal partner) has a free-living form is suspect: previous literature makes no such distinction. The relevant distinction here is not between lichen vs. non-lichen, but facultative vs. obligate lichenization. The observation that the mycobiont can be free-living and "does not depend on its alga for nourishment" does not imply that it doesn't derive nourishment from its algal partner once the partnership is established.

There's no major news here that I can see. The main value of this research is simply that it provides the first description of facultative lichenization occurring in a particular group of under-studied fungi (corticioid basidiomycetes).

[hinkley]

I’m coming around to the notion that fungi have been farming for about a billion years, and just get better at it.

And that temperate forest trees are basically multicellular lichen.

[sethammons]

Check out the documentary The Secret Lives of Trees. Blew my mind.

[TheRealPomax]

I'd certainly consider "describing a real example of a hitherto conjectured form of symbiosis" news enough. Publications aren't only for major news, the vast majority are "just news". This is a new thing, it's worth writing about. Whether this still qualifies as a lichen and we just need to update the canon around lichens, or whether this needs a new name because it behaves fundamentally different from how we understand lichen is entirely up for debate, and not one that this research tries to answer.

[contingo]

But it's not a "hitherto conjectured form of symbiosis". It's just another example of facultative lichenization, which has already been observed in species quite widely scattered across the fungal kingdom. That to me doesn't count as a "new type of coexistence". The actual research behind the headline is valuable and entirely worthy of publication (I've made similar contributions myself), my critique relates to the headline, the angle of the reportage.