Welcome to the first-ever issue of SYMBIOSIS, the newsletter of the new lichen task force. As a subset of WP:FUNGI, the task force is working to improve coverage of the world's lichens – unique organisms composed of one or more fungal partners with one or more photosynthetic partners. They're found around the world, from frigid polar areas to the steamy equator, from the edges of lapping seas to the highest mountains, and from city walls to the most remote wilderness areas. They may be major players in the creation of soil from rock, and they produce substances which may prove beneficial in our fight against pathogenic organisms. Want to learn more? Join us!

Articles of note

New GA article:

• Phacopsis – a genus of lichenicolous fungi

New project members

• Esculenta
• MeegsC
• Kazamzam
• J Milburn
• Dr vulpes
• MerielGJones

Project news

It's been a busy first month for the task force. Among the accomplishments thus far:

• Project pages were created, and various reports and alerts signed up for.
• More than 3,100 articles, templates and categories were tagged as being under the purview of the task force.
• Group members selected the ten articles thought to be of top importance to the project. (Two don't yet exist except as drafts or redirects.)
• The project's cleanup listing backlog was whittled from 220 issues on 194 articles when the project was first established to 145 issues on 124 articles by the end of August. Given that the oldest issues on articles still to fix date back to 2009, there is still much work to do here!
• An outline of lichens was created to provide a one-stop index to existing and needed lichen articles.
• Work was begun on a glossary of lichen terminology.
• Work was begun on converting all articles still using old "taxobox" templates to the newer automatic taxobox and speciesbox templates. More than 100 taxonomy templates have been created so far.
• Dozens of new genus and species articles were created.

Lichen news

• A new study shows that the secondary metabolites produced by a lichen are dependent upon the substrate on which it grows. If necessary, lichens can produce metabolites which, for example, give them a higher resistance to acidity, protect against high concentrations of heavy metals, or allow them to survive drought. Atranorin, which lichens use to filter out excess solar radiation, was the most common secondary metabolite found in the studied species.