Tripp agrees that “we, as a community of lichen biologists, need to revisit the role of all symbionts in the lichen microcosm.” No matter how one describes Tremella and other lichen-associated fungi, it’s clear that they do affect the form and function of the lichen as a whole. How they do so is “the great unsolved problem” of lichenology, says Anne Pringle from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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