It seems that these common mites use C. rubrotincta as kindergarden. Our observations suggest that adult mites bite cavities into the lichen tissue and lay their eggs into them. We observed mite eggs and (the hitherto undescribed) juvenvile stages of the most commonly associated mites.

Paper 1: We describe Cladonia rubrotincta as a new species, distinct from C. norvegica. C. rubrotincta produces red pigment (rhodocladonic acid) as a response to the presence of mites. Red pigmented material previously assigned to C. norvegica probably has to be revised.

Lately we have been working on the interactions of #lichens and #mites. This has been super exciting and the first two publications with our findings are now out. Here a quick summary (thread).