Category Archives: Green Algal Photobionts

Trebouxia update

Posted on October 24, 2014 by heath.obrien

After considerable fiddling, I’ve finally managed to update the phylogeny and host-association matrix for the most common lichen photobiont, Trebouxia. The methods are similar to those used in my previous post on Nostoc rbcX sequences, to the extent that the … Continue reading →

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Green Algal Photobionts: Trentepohlia

Posted on July 23, 2013 by heath.obrien

While most work has focused on coccoid green algae and/or cyanobacteria, a largely overlooked lineage of lichen photobionts is the Trentepoliales, a group of filamentous, carotenoid producing green algae. Trentepohlian algae are associated with one fifth of lichen species world … Continue reading →

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Green Algal Photobionts: Coccomyxa

Posted on July 11, 2013 by heath.obrien

After a few weeks of for a vacation, it’s time to get back to green algal photobionts. In addition to Trebouxia and Asterochloris, there are several other genera of Trebouxiophycean algae that act as photobionts for various groups of lichens. … Continue reading →

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Gunnera symbionts do not cluster with lichen photobionts

Posted on June 20, 2013 by heath.obrien

I have been kicking around the idea of setting up an online catalog of lichen photobionts for years before I started doing this. The main impetus to finally start was this paper: Fernández-Martínez, M., de los Ríos, A., Sancho, L., & Pérez-Ortega, … Continue reading →

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Green Algal Photobionts: Asterochloris.

Posted on June 12, 2013 by heath.obrien

In this post I will be taking a look at the diversity of the junior partner to Trebouxia: Asterochloris. Originally described by Elisabeth Tschermak-Woess in 1980, Asterochloris was subsequently merged with Trebouxia before being split out again on the basis of sequence … Continue reading →

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A preliminary look at host association patterns in Trebouxia

Posted on June 5, 2013 by heath.obrien

Having gone through the steps to build a phylogeny of the most common lichen photobiont, Trebouxia in my last post, I will now go on to discussing the host association patterns that it reveals. Here is the Trebouxia ITS tree … Continue reading →

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Green Algal Photobionts: Trebouxia

Posted on May 16, 2013 by heath.obrien

Having beaten the phylogeny of symbiotic cyanobacteria into submission in my previous post, I am now tackling the green algae. My plan was to start with a big-picture analysis of 18S ribosomal RNA sequences, but my initial blast search returned … Continue reading →

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