401: Phototrophs Fill Fungal Filaments

This episode: In this partnership between fungus and algae, the
algae eventually take up residence inside their partner!


Download Episode (8.4 MB, 12.1 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Erwinia tracheiphila

News item/Summary article

Takeaways
Partnerships and cooperation between otherwise free-living
organisms is common in the natural world. Partnering with a
photosynthetic organism is a smart approach, allowing the partner
to get its energy from the sun and making gathering nutrients
easier for the phototroph, and possibly offering protection as
well. But in most partnerships, each partner stays separated by
its own cell membrane.

In this study, a fungus and an alga grow well together,
exchanging carbon for nitrogen, similar to how lichens operate.
But after a month or so of co-culture, the algae apparently enter
the cells of the fungus somehow and live inside it, happily
growing and dividing, turning the fungus green.

Journal Paper:
Du Z-Y, Zienkiewicz K, Vande Pol N, Ostrom NE, Benning C, Bonito
GM. 2019. Algal-fungal symbiosis leads to photosynthetic
mycelium. eLife 8:e47815.


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