Lichen: The Mysterious Love Child of Fungi and Algae

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A useful principle in the story of life is that you should never underestimate algae or cyanobacteria. They’ll just always manage to surprise you, and more importantly, to remind you that everything you have comes down, eventually, to them.
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Stock video from:
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
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www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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SOURCES:
www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topi...
www.livescience.com/54979-wha...
royalsociety.org/news/2014/sl...
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.livescience.com/55008-lic...
ohioplants.org/lichen-biology/
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...\_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr\_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr\_dat=cr\_pub%20%200pubmed
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...\_Simon\_Schwendener\_1829-1919\_and\_the\_Dual\_Hypothesis\_of\_Lichens
www.nature.com/articles/nrmic...
microbialcellfactories.biomed...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
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[@journeytomicro]

Go to www.squarespace.com/microcosmos to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[@noimnotakpoppfpsheacy2526]

PURR SIS 🧜🏿‍♀️

[@caiden-_-]

Can you do a video on deadly amoebas, how they kill, and how they enter the human bodies. The two main ones I'm wondering about is the brain eating amoeba, Naegleria fowleri and balamuthia mandrillaris which I heard can enter from a cut like on the hand if someone is messing with dirt and I dig a good bit and use my hands to pull things out of the ground covered in dirt

[@TheO5Council]

I think it would be interesting if we can make a mycelium/ lichen supercomputer which would self-assemble into a working biological computer we already can create biological lasers and store digital information in the Genome of living organisms I think we might be able to Frankenstein some kind of bio Quantum bit

[@timothygreer188]

I used to teach the 5th-grade science class how Alice Algae met Freddie Fungus and they took a Lichen to each other. Thanks to recent studies I can't do that anymore without explaining what a throuple is

[@LilBrownieD]

😅😅

[@weldonanderson5124]

Theodore Throuple?

[@arnautarnautsen2564]

I actually read that recent research proves that a lichen always has one species of alga and *two* species of fungi. I was surprised nobody noticed in, you know, some 200 years, but I can't see it in these amazing images, either.

[@willowarkan2263]

Same, that was covered in my biodiversity of plants course, which includes fungi for "historical reasons". We were taught that the secondary fungal symbiont may be the catalyst for the morphological expression of the lichen, so if it's scaly or leafy, etc.

[@Kammerliteratur]

yes, there are yeasts in lichen, too. but at the moment, nobody knows which role they play or if they are just commensals.

[@borttorbbq2556]

One algae 2 fungi and like 3 bacteria

[@csn583]

For the 12 days of symbiosis, my lichen gave to me...

[@rEGGinaldYolkerston-qp9px]

@@csn583 good thread; would read again. Good job everyone!

[@cineblazer]

You know, I've really started to take a lichen to this channel. The writing is excellent and Hank is such a fungi!

[@andrearupe8094]

AaaaaaaaaaaaAAA

[@williek08472]

Booooooooo

[@KonradvonHotzendorf]

Nice 😂👍

[@nadapenny8592]

I hate how good this is.

[@ronaldmorgan7632]

And Al, gee, he's so green with envy.

[@RJFerret]

I remember a chance encounter at a park with a fellow sitting on a rock looking over lichen. "Nice day, what are you looking at?" He told me about the symbiosis of lichen. I'd wondered since how integrated the cells were, thanks for showing such!

[@accelerationquanta5816]

Rare interaction between PCs in a world primarily composed of NPCs

[@anonhere4021]

That exchange sounds absolutely magical

[@anonhere4021]

That exchange sounds absolutely magical

[@Spo8]

The level of quality this channel brings to every single video is just staggering.

[@DirtyDerg]

Zoomers be like "Wow a channel with no filler!!!" Everyone else "This is just how the internet used to be."

[@RichardLaurence]

I remember when my local council in England proudly announced that someone had discovered a new type of lichen on a pavement. Sadly, during analysis it was noticed that the ‘lichen’ smelled faintly of mint and was actually chewing gum!

[@SirUncleDolan]

Just goes to show, it's good to independently confirm before sharing with the rest of the class! 🤭 I feel bad for the person who thought they found it though, hopefully it was just a student or something

[@RichardLaurence]

@@SirUncleDolan I don’t think anyone got too much grief - it was treated in a light-hearted way!

[@RADCOMJ1]

Maybe because it was wriggleys😉

[@daxbjornstad-northern1495]

I’m just reading through the comments, and this channel has the sweetest fan base

[@Acc3ssd3n13d4]

"We don't know the tings we don't know". Equally profound and disturbing at the same time.

[@glossaria2]

I developed (ha!) a love affair with lichen when I got a camera with a microscope setting, that lets me take incredibly zoomed-in photos at extremely close range. I discovered an entire garden of lichen growing atop one of the old wooden fence posts of my mom's garden. The closer you get, the stranger and more beautiful they are. And of course, they also frequently play host to my OTHER favorite microorganism, the tardigrade!

[@blackflare]

maybe lichen is kind of like what life was on earth before it got more complex. Similar to how we eventually somehow captured mitochondria and integrated it, there was probably a time when our ancestor organisms were still just symbiotically coming togther.

[@djinnisequoia]

That's a viable theory. I've seen it postulated that our internal organs may have started out as symbiotic colonies

[@jamesbugbee9026]

The colon as an intelligent worm (fill it w/ barium & C what happens)

[@catpoke9557]

​@@djinnisequoia that is kind of gross to think about

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

​@@jamesbugbee9026 no, much simpler internals than that. We got mitochondria that way, after all.

[@pgknippel]

If this is who I think it is narrating, thank you SO much for a) slowing the narration down and b) laying off all that redundant text. Much more relaxing this way…thanks again, excellent content as per usual.

[@gastonmarian7261]

Our perspective on the world is always limited by the language culture uses to describe it. It's like Godel's incompleteness theorem, there will always be true things about the world that stand apart from language, the framework we use to explain it to ourselves. It's the task of poets and visionaries to create new models, pushing the language of understanding right up to the boundary of what's speakable

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

That's known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or linguistic relativity). Note that the strong version of that (linguistic determinism) is generally rejected by both linguists and psychologists.

[@gastonmarian7261]

The fascists of the world have long known how to use this for evil. Define your opponents as "untermensch", under men, literally sub-human, and suddenly lots of reasonable people think it's okay to genocide a population, rather than having compassion for their fellow human beings. Within your own experience of reality, you can approach the unspeakable much nearer. As espoused by philosopher and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, we can at any time reengage with the archaic techniques of shamanism, partaking of plant medicines like mushrooms or ayahuasca to shed all conventions of language. By stepping outside of culture, we get a new perspective on reality and are invited to come up with linguistic models for things no one has seen before and no one will ever see again. On any weekend afternoon, each of us could be our own Magellan, sailing the seas of our own internal landscapes, finding new shores. When we prone the boundaries of our own humanness, engage directly with our connection to the Other, that which is truly alien and has only us as its connection point to the mundane plane, we find how profound and ecstatic our existence on this planet can be. "I lean over meaning's edge, and feel the dizziness of the things unsaid." Because there are things close to the surface that are truly unsayable, showing us through personal, direct experience how literally our language limits us. Just as being wrapped in a body of flesh and blood opens one set of possibilities and limitations to us, culture too wraps us in another layer that filters what's accessible in our sphere. Fortunately, culture can evolve quicker than biology, and we are free at any moment to shed it in search of more fundamental truths.

[@jamesbugbee9026]

Infinity vs (#) vocabulary

[@k1m6a11]

ummm, wut?

[@yam-ingtonjr7606]

your narritives and visuals give me a sense of peace while fueling my curiosity in a way no other channel has been able to achieve. i come here to relax and learn about little tiny guys, all while wearing my cozy microcosm crewneck which goes harder than any other sweater i own

[@spiderdude2099]

Because they can both photosynthesize and break down minerals for food, lichens are one of the first lifeforms to recolonize after disasters like forest fires and volcanic eruptions. Scientists use the appearance of lichens as an indicator that an ecological area is recovering

[@zJoriz]

Funny, I was thinking about lichen recently. Haven't washed my car in a while and there's something reddish growing on the roof. Was thinking of sending samples of it to James, if he's interested

[@muslalah5567]

I’m lichen this channel! So great. Keep up the good work!

[@renzbongers337]

The photos were amazing! You should make posters of them!

[@DenUil]

What I don't yet understand is how a lichen is formed. Is it a fungus that meets an algae and in a kind off wedding for the lichen, or is the lichen something that produces spores that grow new lichen?

[@bjornbesbitt6446]

Both of your guesses are right! An algae and a fungus can collide in nature and eventually grow together to form a lichen. A mature lichen can also reproduce by releasing packets of algal pores and hyphae into the air, or growing fragile bits of itself outward, that break off and become their own organism

[@DenUil]

@@bjornbesbitt6446 thanks!

[@andrewgraves4026]

The sexual part of lichen reproduction often gets glossed over. Where and how do separate lichen individuals combine DNA? Do the alga and fungus make separate packages of DNA which … combine, like two couples, in spore production?

[@bjornbesbitt6446]

@@andrewgraves4026 it's a little unusual and I don't 100% understand it myself as I am still a student. But basically, when a lichen sexually reproduces, it's only the fungal component that releases any genetic material. The fungus releases spores into the environment, and the spores must wait until they have encountered the appropriate algae or cyanobacteria. Since this method relies so much on that chance meeting, it is not as effective as asexual reproduction.

[@andrewgraves4026]

@@bjornbesbitt6446 thanks! Great job.

[@optinoptimist]

beautiful video!! thank you again! it left me with some thoughts, and i'll go ahead and share them: it seems that opposition is easy to spot because it can feel disruptive and scary, but more broadly, everything is so cooperative and connected that things like opposition and individuality just stand out so starkly against the contrast, which makes those things feel like the more prevailing trends; however, when all things are considered, the level of internal and external cooperation is on an entirely different scale. much of that which feels like opposition is simply interactions and building blocks that are a part of a larger scale cooperation. it's only when things of the same scale cooperate that we even call it cooperation, which is a mistake. love yall out there, stay up!!!

[@billfarley9015]

I wonder to what extent lichens prepared the early Earth for green plants and animals, adding oxygen to the air and breaking down rocks.

[@AmandaComeauCreates]

I believe it's already well theorized that lichen might've been the first and most successful land organisms but I saw it in a video awhile back.

[@Slattery777]

Great episode like always

[@philipmurphy2]

Another great episode, Thank you.

[@sentientflower7891]

Always beautiful videos!

[@ForestFire369]

I wake & baked this morning, and this is exactly how I wanted to spend my Easter Monday 😂 I love you, Hank, thank you so much for this show ❤

[@csn583]

Careful, only you can prevent...

[@ChrisUnltdTV]

High right now and my mind is blown watching this 😂

[@codemonkeyslikeme]

Smoke dat green lichens 🔥

[@matthill367]

Really good episode. I love the microscopy, so detailed , I screenshot one and set as my wallpaper

[@katehorn7530]

I taught a lichen themed summer camp recently haha! Lichen is very cool and I'm happy to see it get the recognition it deserves

[@marthanewsome6375]

I cultivated as a novice on an artifical rock wall in a paludarium, just from a pinch of lichen I collected.

[@TheBullethead]

So here's the question hanging unanswered over this episode.... Do lichens reproduce other lichens or is each lichen a chance meeting of strangers?

[@FloozieOne]

Thanks for this. Watching many many nature videos I have heard lichens mentioned many times as a unique life-form made up of two others, but this is the first time I have found out why and what the processes are for their interactions. You have expanded my world another notch and I will never walk by a lichen again without looking and marveling at it.

[@houstongalloway6380]

I agree. I've watched many "documentaries" on Lichen and this one is great. Short and full of knowledge, and pictures.

[@DSAK55]

Dayum! way better than expected

[@TheOneAndOnlyLewis]

Ive been watching loads of videos about lichen recently, just out of curiosity. Then you go an upload this.

[@ivythay4259]

I've been waiting for a lichen video for ages.

[@philipweilguni2571]

Great Video as always 😁 Tiny language PSA though: „Sch“ as in Schwendener is pronounced the same as „sh“ in the word shake. Cheers from Austria 🇦🇹

[@Mephistopholies]

Good show!

[@Corn0nTheCobb]

Does Hank Green have to be the host of every science channel on KZbin? I can't seem to get away from him! He almost had me fooled with his more calm-than-usual tone here, but the credits don't lie!

[@Guydude777]

Very interesting!

[@AndrewChumKaser]

Imagine your buddy literally living inside your body and being super chill and helpful to you. How bro do you have to be to hang out inside your buddy.

[@8Jory]

Thank you for being so chill in these videos, I can sleep now.

[@mateusnicolinibezerra9757]

If they became a single organism fully, would they create a whole new Kingdom or even Domain? :o

[@scrambo6182]

Amazing! Now we just need an episode on endosymbionts.

[@GeoffryGifari]

how does lichen fall under taxonomy? how does it reproduce if it needs both algae and fungi? which fungi and which algae can combine as a lichen? so many questions...

[@Tropicalpisces]

In CT USA.. lichen smell LOVELY. ☺️😻 I once took a gravestone cleaning class and realized their comforting, earthy, almost petrichor ish scent bc I came home smelling great 😂 .. they're also very pretty. 🎉

[@Infamous159]

@6:00 the little things vibrating whatever that molecule was (looks like just a big drop of water) until it popped and realizing it didnt actually pop and his friend behind him trying to push him into the little gap he cant fit was amazing. It looked like it was vibrating that molecule so hard it was creating a sonic pressure wave between it and the molecule. Then it popped and became more circular and it started getting pushed by his buddies and started trying to create the wave again to get through. I wonder if he ever made it? lol

[@Infamous159]

likewise at 8:08 the little rod that comes into view just below 630X text and disappears once it meets something vibrating was equally interesting. What was that? Didn't look like bacteria

[@Pyro-et9vs]

My mycology professor had this video on one of his lecture slides!

[@skepticalgenious]

Whaaat. Fungi/ hyphae work with algae. So cool. It's amazing all the processes needed for us to survive.

[@lunadefuego779]

great data and presentation and excellent reflection about modern dogmas in science. 10/10

[@CrackDavidson1]

Man just watched scishow before this video and realized man that voice sounds familiar. Been watching these for a while, but never made the connection. :D

[@memofrf]

Thank you.

[@wombat.6652]

THANK YOU!!! I love lichens.

[@patriciadonovan4829]

I love lichen, as an amateur, but I freaked out with delight when I found out about the new (new to humans) double fungi twist. I wonder how many other lifeforms will be found to be the result of living things combing with one or more other living things.

[@nyuh]

no way...,,, lichen are the og symbiosises i did not know that. that is so cool

[@adamlaceky8127]

Several years ago, it was discovered that lichen have at least three species: two algae or cyanobacteria, and a fungus.

[@user-qc6en2mq9v]

This is definitely to my lichen. Lol 😆 liking

[@David-ld3ts]

Everytime I see a lichen I point it out and say “I’m liken’ it!!!”

[@osmia]

What about yeast? Seems to me that I remember hearing about a lichen and that had algae, fungus, and yeast

[@Kammerliteratur]

that's true, but the role of the yeast is not yet understood.

[@csn583]

Yeast is also fungi FWIW.

[@Kammerliteratur]

@@csn583 yes.

[@synoptic4753]

Yeast to ferment Human bodies

[@kayleighgroenendal8473]

I could listen to Hank speak quietly and closely into a microphone all day 😂

[@complex314i]

The ultimate evolution of the lichen is surely the lichen trees of the Tentacled Forest, the great coniferous rainforest stretching across 35 hundred of miles of Northwest Novopangea.

[@gilessmedley619]

I was taught the symbiosis of lichen as the algae are the phytobiont (not photobiont) & the fungi the mycobiont

[@benjaminandersen1097]

another wonderful episode, thank you!

[@CharGC123]

If there is lichen growing on my feet, does that mean I need to move more? 🤣

[@zainmudassir2964]

Good friendship 🤝

[@riverAmazonNZ]

When you say the holdfast is like a peg, do you mean a wooden peg as in a straight rod, a wooden peg for a clothesline, a divided rod, or a clothes peg that pinches with a spring and opens and shuts ?

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

I love this so much!

[@amicaaranearum]

“You see, just as the earth lichen is composed of an algae and a fungus, the quantum variety is also comped of two separated parts: an attractive, algae-based id and a ravenous, fungus-based ego that stores the stolen souls - I mean, life forces. Now, here’s the weird part: the ego and the id are connected not physically, like decent, God-fearing earth lichens, but by quantum entanglement.”

[@Pyro-et9vs]

What are you talking about?

[@kingtoad2234]

I have always loved lichen and fungi

[@polychoron]

I want to see the big leafy lichen growing on a sloth, that would look so cool, like someone from a video game.

[@MarStacey]

Im really lichen this episode 🖤✨

[@anshulsharma4754]

That's the voice of Mr Tom Hank from PBS Sci-Show! Isn't it??

[@jonathanleonard1152]

Lichen, how they evolved and what they are made of, have analogy to religion also. There is “us”, each of us is individual and can function and at times reproduce with others of our kind. And there are those in our heads, those who help or harm us. The help or harm is at times dependent on what we are willing to put up with as voices in our heads. These voices can get around and function but they can not reproduce. Those voices can help us to do good or bad.

[@isabellabihy8631]

Mycobiont and photobiont: They took a likin' to each other.

[@m5a1stuart83]

So this means the fungus are the PMC and Bodyguard of Algae. Impressive.

[@NewMessage]

I'm surprised. Story checks out.

[@2nostromo]

what did you learn?

[@bnthern]

has any gene work been done to see how they relate / interact / which functions each does?

[@markromanoscience4387]

What did the algae say to fungus about their symbiotic relationship? . . . I'm LICHEN it!

[@josieschultz4241]

shoutout to the great oxidization effect

[@_vicary]

Why are these videos still survives in the TikTok era, and why am I liking this more than I should?

[@TheRogueWolf]

I'm watching this video and I'm lichen what I see.

[@nelsoncabrera6464]

7:38 Wow, beautiful!

[@edh2246]

I’m looking for a poster illustration of small measurements down to the atomic level. Can someone please point me? Thanks.

[@Memry-Man]

Yeah, we're much closer the the beginning than the ending of understanding

[@HikarusVibrator]

Lichen is like Jesus. When I found Lichen I saw it everywhere. It filled my heart, and guided my thoughts. The world will never be the same again.

[@ericneiman5556]

I found lichen that was bone dry. Growing with moss. It's the beginning of spring now.

[@nichole_null]

I’m lichen this content!

[@jonyeawright]

Al Gee met Fun Gus met and took a lichen to each other.

[@hellomynameisname4270]

The number 3 is the beginning of everything we've learned.

[@escobasingracia962]

8:14 someone need to create a KZbin channel dedicated exclusively to the things that we don't know

[@MrPyriusfire]

Please please please do a deep dive on myxomycetes (slime mold) it’s not a fungus or a plant. It has a part of its life cycle where the spore’s it drops for reproduction land in water they grow flagella and start hunting bacteria

[@Amocles]

Not the first time a fun guy couple were lichen some Al, G.

[@gaeshows1938]

Fun guy and al gore Iconic duo

[@unvergebeneid]

Because this series always frustratingly leaves me with more questions than answers, here's at least the most important one answered by ChatGPT: "One common method of asexual reproduction in lichens is fragmentation, in which a portion of the lichen breaks off and establishes itself as a new individual. This can occur naturally through environmental factors such as wind or water, or through physical disturbance such as trampling or grazing. Another method of asexual reproduction in lichens is through the production of specialized structures called soredia or isidia. Soredia are small, dust-like particles that contain both fungal and algal cells, while isidia are small, finger-like projections containing the same cells. These structures can detach from the parent lichen and grow into new individuals under suitable conditions."

[@LilDitBit]

I love this ❤

[@cabudagavin3896]

was good

[@wssometimesavowel3639]

This symbiosis reminds me of "multicellular life". 😂

[@oc4029]

This is all good and interesting but can I eat it?

[@abiofficial-ws7pn]

Is that Hank Green's voice?

[@TheJrerick]

Is the narrator the dude from Sci show?

[@mm-yt8sf]

could there also be a "slavery" relationship in organisms? like do the algae cells function fine on their own if they are in wet surroundings? or could the fungus structure still live off an external food source if all the green cells were removed? i never saw the vampire movies where people use the term lycan for lycanthropes. when i first saw clips of people talking about them i thought they were referring to "lichens" 🙂

[@hydroids]

I wonder what these funjeye and aljee he keeps mentioning are

[@therongjr]

Amīr Al-Jī (أمير الجي in the original Arabic) was the person who discovered that lichens are really cool.

[@ferretyluv]

You forgot to mention the biggest thing we need to thank Cyanobacteria for is our mitochondria.