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High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens
Self-sustaining lichen symbioses potentially can become very old, sometimes even thousands of years in nature. In the joint structures, algal partners are sheltered between fungal structures that are externally colonized by bacterial communities. With this arrangement lichens survive long periods of...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27464604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-016-0818-5 |
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author | Cernava, Tomislav Berg, Gabriele Grube, Martin |
author_facet | Cernava, Tomislav Berg, Gabriele Grube, Martin |
author_sort | Cernava, Tomislav |
collection | PubMed |
description | Self-sustaining lichen symbioses potentially can become very old, sometimes even thousands of years in nature. In the joint structures, algal partners are sheltered between fungal structures that are externally colonized by bacterial communities. With this arrangement lichens survive long periods of drought, and lichen thalli can be revitalized even after decades of dry storage in a herbarium. To study the effects of long-term ex situ storage on viability of indigenous bacterial communities we comparatively studied herbarium-stored material of the lung lichen, Lobaria pulmonaria. We discovered that a significant fraction of the lichen-associated bacterial community survives herbarium storage of nearly 80 years, and living bacteria can still be found in even older material. As the bacteria reside in the upper surface layers of the lichen material, we argue that the extracellular polysaccharides of lichens contribute to superior life expectancy of bacteria. Deeper understanding of underlying mechanisms could provide novel possibilities for biotechnological applications. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5023722 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50237222016-09-27 High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens Cernava, Tomislav Berg, Gabriele Grube, Martin Microb Ecol Notes and Short Communications Self-sustaining lichen symbioses potentially can become very old, sometimes even thousands of years in nature. In the joint structures, algal partners are sheltered between fungal structures that are externally colonized by bacterial communities. With this arrangement lichens survive long periods of drought, and lichen thalli can be revitalized even after decades of dry storage in a herbarium. To study the effects of long-term ex situ storage on viability of indigenous bacterial communities we comparatively studied herbarium-stored material of the lung lichen, Lobaria pulmonaria. We discovered that a significant fraction of the lichen-associated bacterial community survives herbarium storage of nearly 80 years, and living bacteria can still be found in even older material. As the bacteria reside in the upper surface layers of the lichen material, we argue that the extracellular polysaccharides of lichens contribute to superior life expectancy of bacteria. Deeper understanding of underlying mechanisms could provide novel possibilities for biotechnological applications. Springer US 2016-07-27 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC5023722/ /pubmed/27464604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-016-0818-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Notes and Short Communications Cernava, Tomislav Berg, Gabriele Grube, Martin High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title | High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title_full | High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title_fullStr | High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title_full_unstemmed | High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title_short | High Life Expectancy of Bacteria on Lichens |
title_sort | high life expectancy of bacteria on lichens |
topic | Notes and Short Communications |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27464604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-016-0818-5 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT cernavatomislav highlifeexpectancyofbacteriaonlichens AT berggabriele highlifeexpectancyofbacteriaonlichens AT grubemartin highlifeexpectancyofbacteriaonlichens |