When you see a lichen, you're basically looking at all fungal tissue, with some algal cells hidden away and protected inside, loosely speaking, it's like a greenhouse -- the fungus creates a more hospitable environment for the algae.

Matthew Nelsen

I think we're going to see the ranges of these things shift, and that could lead to some shuffling of the relationships with fungi -- we might get partnerships that weren't there previously.

They have interesting stories behind them, and it's just kind of up to us to try to figure out what exactly they're doing out there in nature.