PRJNA384306
symbiont metagenome Raw sequence reads
The fungus Schizoxylon albescens can live as loosely lichenized on Populus bark or as saprobe on Populus wood. This phenomenon, called optional lichenization, was used in our study as a system to investigate the effect of the lichen symbiosis on bacterial community structure in a fungus that can also live as saprotroph. We sampled both lifestyles of S. albescens on northern Sweden and investigate their bacterial communities by high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing.