I'd certainly consider "describing a real example of a hitherto conjectured form of symbiosis" news enough. Publications aren't only for major news, the vast majority are "just news". This is a new thing, it's worth writing about. Whether this still qualifies as a lichen and we just need to update the canon around lichens, or whether this needs a new name because it behaves fundamentally different from how we understand lichen is entirely up for debate, and not one that this research tries to answer.