Strains from the clove-infecting lineage grow more slowly than the banana infecting ones and are only found at higher elevations. Since we were under some time pressure to get them onto plates as early as possible to inform later sampling decisions, we sampled at nightfall and processed that night.

After a long drive into Central Java, we set up the mobile lab in the plantation office

Within four days of landing lab HQ was set up, hundreds of plates were poured and we were in the field sampling for Ralstonia on clove.

Lab HQ for this trip is in the brand new Agrotropica Learning Center at UGM 👌

Landed in Indonesia to continue the hunt for Ralstonia syzygii! After piles of paperwork, the real work begins..

Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What is the best strategy to win any contest? Eliminate your opponents of course. Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Presenting Dr. Daria Evseeva! Daria defended her thesis at @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social last week and earned her doctorate - with distinction! She worked on a historic outbreak of Ralstonia in Martinique, the origins of the banana outbreak in Indonesia, and the evolution of intermicrobial antagonism.

I will be so chalant when they tell me off for snacking in the new lecture hall 😅😂

There’s a leak - and a conceptual artist - at the Max Planck 👌

It was an amazing sciences day at #2025ISMPMI! Right after the “Population, biology, ecology and genomics” session, I had the opportunity to have lunch and discuss about this topic with the co-chair @honour.bsky.social

#phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One of my favourite serendipitous results from the lab came about because we were long-read sequencing bacterial: Vibrio cholerae, which is "supposed to" have TWO circular chromosomes (3 + 1 million base pairs) often has just ONE fused chromosome (4 Mbp). www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/n)

Cell-type-specific execution of effector-triggered immunity Our new preprint is online, 1 July⬇️ With @himanshuchhillar.bsky.social @leonardojo.bsky.social Amey Redkar @kaisakajala.bsky.social @jonathandgjones.bsky.social For early readers & community feedback🙏🏼 #openscience @erc.europa.eu

Black Forest Lab Retreat! Great hikes, exploding kittens* and milk-washed cocktails. *The card game

This is what a multi-floor meeting looks like at the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social. Love a good science lobby 😁

New Paper out! apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/epdf/10.... We wanted to know how much genetic variation exists for Zymoseptoria in a single wheat field.

Congratulations to @hassansalem.bsky.social on the #ERC Consolidator Grant! 🎉 The project explores how beetles use symbiotic relationships w/ microbes to digest plant material, & compare this to gene transfer for digestive enzyme acquisition. 🪲tinyurl.com/bdhrdnes Evolutionary insights to come!

📢 Excited to share our work out now in @nature.com! 📢 We present the phased pan-genome of tetraploid European potato, based on 10 historical cultivars representing 85% of European potato diversity. Learn more below! 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/7

Pseudomonas syringae secretes the iminosugar glycosyrin to block plant immune recognition. It mimics galactose to inhibit β-galactosidase, disrupt flagellin sensing, and rewire host glycobiology! doi.org/10.1126/scie... Huge congrats to Tee and everyone involved! #PlantImmunity #PlantChemeticsLab

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

It was a great honor to give a seminar yesterday @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social. Thanks for inviting me and for all the great & stimulating chats I had throughout the day! So inspiring to learn about the newest research done in the Ley lab, and on the S-layer and on plant pathogens ! #microsky

The classic Tübingen photo 😄 @olayarendueles.bsky.social visited the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social and told us about the impact of extracellular polysaccharide on phage and plasmid-mediated HGT 👌

Thanks for the awesome talk and fun visit @kseniakrasileva.bsky.social !

Applications due this Friday 3/21/25 for a one-week, hands-on summer school on Quantitative Phage-Bacteria Dynamics Across Scales at the U of Maryland, June 23-27, 2025. Travel awards available & no fee for participants. Open to MS/PhD/Postdocs, space is limited. Apply: bit.ly/phageschool2...

This has been in the works for a while, and is not a response to recent events, but the timing couldn't be better: Canada now allows foreign students and postdocs to apply for more doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships! www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NewsDetail-D...

We have a 2-year postdoc position available in the Lind Lab at Umeå University, Sweden! Predicting and steering experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Reposts appreciated. umu.varbi.com/en/?jobtoken...

I'm delighted to announce that the 2025 @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" will be held in Liverpool 26-27 November 2025! Abstract submission will open soon... #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...

Abstract submission for @ismpmi.bsky.social Cologne 2025 closes tomorrow night 🍃 bit.ly/41PQBBf

@estukenbrock.bsky.social on tour at the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social 😎 Thanks for the visit and great talk!

🚨New paper published in @nature.com! Using pan-genetics across the Solanum genus🍅🥔🍆we reveal why gene duplications🧬are major contingencies in crop engineering. My postdoc work in the Lippman lab @CSHL, collab. with @katiejenike.bsky.social @mikeschatz.bsky.social chatz.bsky.social and many others!

🚨 We’re hiring–please spread the word! 🚨 Our lab at @thesainsburylab.bsky.social is looking for a pre-doc intern to join our research on plant immunity. If you’re a current undergrad/master’s or recent graduate interested in gaining research experience, please apply! tatsuyanobori.com

Using genomics to explore the ecology and evolution of plant-associated microbial populations and communities? 🌿 Submit an abstract by March 11 and join us in Cologne this July for #ISMPMI2025! We serve cool science + cold German beer 🍻 Join the party: buff.ly/uqEfN6O

Wow Just Wow youtu.be/G8ECt04qPos?...

The role of bacterial metabolism in antimicrobial resistance www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fantastic work from the lab of @maxplanck.de colleague Paul Rainey, demonstrating how a locus can evolve to become hypermutable. Mutation rates depend on evolutionary relevance of this evolved locus! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Really exciting work: The Salmonella Colicin Col1b cannot only KILL a competing E. coli population, but also AMPLIFY metabolic contributions of susceptible bacteria by liberating β-gal… From @nic-ler.bsky.social. @kroegerlab.bsky.social, Andrew Cameron and others ‼️ academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Legitmately thrilled to share our latest work, in which @fernpizza.bsky.social solved an experimental challenge in plasmid biology as old as the field: measuring how plasmids compete and evolve within individual cells!

wow! plasmid competition within individual cells measured – what a feat! #MicroSky

Thanks for the fun visit and great discussion!

Workshop-Recap "Concepts in Evolutionary Biology" From Feb 10–13, 2025, researchers gathered in Plön to discuss key concepts, present new findings & engage in lively debates. Big thanks to all participants—looking forward to the next edition! #Evolution #EvoBio #Science交流 #ResearchCommunity

Infected plant // Infectious laughs 😁

Visiting collaborators and attending PhD proposal and comprehensive exams at UGM this week 🇮🇩

Check out the team battling the bananapocalypse! 🍌 Fantastic collab on Ralstonia emergence in Indonesia. Thanks for the video and support @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social + @maxplanck.de

I was in Indonesia yesterday for a Phd proposal exam at UGM 😊🇮🇩 Well done Pudak!

The UCSB KITP QBio course on mobile elements was amazing 🩵 With excellent projects led by @paulturnerlab.bsky.social, Roberto Kolter, Joanne Emerson, Richard Neher, @erikvannimwegen.bsky.social, Ben Good (+ me). Course began with a wetlab bootcamp, Dallas Mould demonstrating the first experiments..