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Symbiosis in Animals and Plants

Abstract

I. SYMBIOSIS IN PLANTS. (i) Lichens. IT is well known to botanists that the vegetative body (thallus) of lichen plants consists of two distinct organisms, a fungus and an alga (“gonidia”). Schwendener (1867–69) regarded the fungus as living parasitically upon the alga, a view which gained Support from subsequent researches, especially those of Bonnier (1886–9), wherein synthetic cultures were obtained by bringing together (a) various algae and (b) fungus-spores isolated from cultures of fungi forming the one component of certain lichens.

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References

  1. From the presidential address delivered to Section I. (Physiology) of the British Association at Liverpool on September 13.

  2. Bacteriologists are continuously misapplying the term symbiosis in referring to bacteria grown in mixed cultures, when there is no evidence whatever that the micro-organisms are mutually interdependent for their growth.

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NUTTALL, G. Symbiosis in Animals and Plants. Nature 112, 657–660 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112657a0

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