Our work on chromatin evolution in brown algae is finally out! This is also my first "co-first author" paper!! I’m excited to share what we found 👇

✨ Paper spotlight ✨ (🧵 1/6) Status of mycorrhiza research in 2026 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

How much protein diversity can Life on Earth actually generate? With DIAMOND DeepClust, we show how billions of proteins across the tree of life can be clustered at low-identity for downstream analytics tasks. 📚Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 💻Code: github.com/bbuchfink/di...

Advances in #mycorrhizal symbiosis research, including highlights from ##iMMM2025 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #Viewpoint by Dallaire and Kameoka @alexdallaire.bsky.social

The first publication from the Dallaire and Kameoka labs is out! A forward-looking review on the status of mycorrhiza research in 2026, with emphasis on AM fungi doi.org/10.1111/nph.... @newphyt.bsky.social @ulaval.ca 🇨🇦

Dear CanFunNet community, we are happy to announce the return of our virtual conference this year between August 5-7! We encourage you to save the date and hope to see you all again this year! More information on registration and abstract submission to come soon! #CFN26

Now up on bioRxiv! Working with @dianzheng.bsky.social and Jan van Kan, we tested how DNA is distributed between nuclei in multinucleate fungal spores. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Only ~100€ to attend this workshop with an awesome speaker lineup 💫

Every year or so, the position of AM fungi in the Fungal Tree of Life seems to shift. It happened again in 2025-2026: AM fungi were reported as sister to Mucoromycotina, then as sister to Dikarya + Entorrhizomycota. One consistent takeaway, though, is the timing...

Wow! Here's some solid evidence that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi use small RNAs to regulate plant gene expression. Congratulations to the teams of @carogutj.bsky.social and Arne Weiberg doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Hron, @dalibormiklik.bsky.social @hpaces.bsky.social et al. demonstrate that avian dot microchromosomes harbor widespread gene attrition; retained dot chromosomes genes exhibit a new form of dynamic genetic instability - sequence stuttering. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag038 #genome #evolution #birds

PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

1/ ✨ New preprint alert ✨ It is my pleasure to share: "Stepwise evolution of the developmental and symbiotic functions of DELLA in land plants" Here we investigated the role of the single GRAS transcription factor DELLA in #MyMarchantia doi.org/10.64898/202... #PlantScience A thread...

Why do the chromosomes of cyperids (sedges & rushes) split and fuse so regularly on evolutionary timescales? Is it because they have so many centromeres? Our new preprint, the first major paper of my PhD, addresses this question. 🧵⬇️ 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out in @science.org this week, two fungal enzymes synthesise DHHA, which controls cell wall porosity and turgor in plant pathogenic fungi www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #mycology #plantscience

When humans create an artificial island, how do fungi colonize this new habitat? Using the Danish island Peberholm as an experimental system, a recent Fungal Ecology article examines arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal succession on new land. doi.org/10.1016/j.fu... 📷 Wikipedia

Rereading these two papers: Holes in the hologenome: why host-microbe symbioses are not holobionts. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... The Hologenome Concept: Helpful or Hollow? journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... And I still find myself in general agreement with most of the points in them

Interesting kind of genomic compartmentalisation in wheat: transposable elements are enriched around genomic regions that were under selection during domestication 🧬

What the hell? No recombination no problem? "These findings challenge the boundary between sex and clonality, revealing a unique evolutionary strategy linking genome architecture, recombination loss, and transmission bias." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A new AMF genome is out, and it is a beauty! Congrats for putting together the monstrously big Gigaspora margarita 🙌 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It's easier to tear down than build up, and in science we have a bad case of that. So: how to lead a journal club that actually finds value in what you read. scientistseessquirre... 🧪

👾 Congrats to @bbuchfink.bsky.social and @hajkdrost.bsky.social for DIAMOND dominating the annotation of fungal metagenomics data! And to authors for reporting the use of computational tools 🙌 doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Microbial eukaryotes keep challenging assumptions about eukaryotic cell and genome biology. Our upcoming workshop explores the frontier of protist genomics and how it shapes cell biology, ecology and evolution. Please save the date! Talks, posters and ECR events Websites and details coming soon

Hi friends—consider this 👇 Let’s work together to bring amazing mycologists together in South Korea in 2027! gofund.me/5cc978d4d

"The only kind of thinking that matters in science is structured thinking. The only way to give structure and substance to your thoughts is to write them down. Writing. Is. Thinking." Thinking about this in the context of AI tools....

Attention scientists from all over the world🙃 The Call for Letters of Intent for #HFSPResearchGrants 2027 is now open! 🧪 Get your international & interdisciplinary team. It's time to put your bold research idea into practice! 🔗https://bit.ly/48VsGCG 📅 15 Dec 2025–26 Mar 2026 #sts #LifeSciences

🌱 Why mutate when you can epimutate? A nice perspective on plants by @thanvisrikant.bsky.social & @hajkdrost.bsky.social

Absolutely gorgeous microscopy and time-lapse imaging on this plant-mutualist-pathogen system! Insane in the membrane 🎶 Well done @alexguyon.bsky.social @dromius.bsky.social and colleagues!

In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science. The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.

A phase oscillator model of cell cycles reveals nuclear density control in a branched fungal network doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Plant Science Research Weekly -- How parasitic plants avoid being parasitized (Science) @shirasulab.bsky.social (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) buff.ly/KEgzFe5 #PlantaePSRW

New light on old stones: a fossil #fungus in #symbiosis with one of the oldest known land plants @chistinesd.bsky.social, et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @dromius.bsky.social @ffercoq.bsky.social #PlantScience Summary also available in French and Spanish.

🔥 At conferences, who asks the questions shapes who gets seen. Across 24 ID&CM meetings, women were 55% of delegates but asked 36% of questions. 💬 When women moderate or speak first, others follow. Let’s change the pattern bit.ly/47VL0eH 🙏 @maudsalmona.bsky.social & MicroID EmpowHERment consortium

TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty. Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion. With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #TEworldwide

Plz RP. Come join us at @slcuplants.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk to study effector-targeted plant processes impacting plant cell biology and development. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/post-do... www.schornacklab.net

DIAMOND v2.1.15 now supports all taxonomy features for BLAST databases, and support for using BLAST databases has also been added to the Bioconda version github.com/bbuchfink/di...

I had such fun thinking, reading and writing this Tansley Review on #arbuscular #mycorrhizal #fungal mycelia. We need a more fungal-centric view to better understand not only the AM fungi, but also their many ecological roles. @newphyt.bsky.social 🔗 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/DHGB3S....

#JobOffer 💼 Un poste susceptible d’être vacant de Professeur en stabilité des génomes devrait s’ouvrir pour la rentrée 2026 au sein de l’Institut Jacques Monod ➡️ Informations concernant ce poste et la procédure de candidature 🔗 www.ijm.fr/poste-de-pro...

Serial innovations, HGT and gene loss led to the formation of the replisome of the eukaryotic ancestor

Fungal #GenomeSize variation is largely driven by TEs & lineage-specific genome defenses. @tbadet.bsky.social & @danielcroll.bsky.social show that presence/absence of RIP mutation systems influences #genome architecture, identifying a likely novel defense mechanism @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4hcC5tx

🇨🇦 My department is recruiting a new tenure-track professor! If you do computational work on microbes and can teach in French reasonably well, please consider applying! Dry-wet lab hybrids also welcome. www.rh.ulaval.ca/emplois-disp... @ulaval.ca

Check out this new Levine-Lampson collaboration, led by the talented Hyuk-Joon Jeon. We explored the consequences of inheriting long telomeres from dad and short telomeres from mom. Or the reciprocal. Turns out, parent-of-origin matters (in mice, at least). authors.elsevier.com/c/1loW-3QW8S...

Previously on BioRxiv, and now a final version of our paper is out! What a great lesson in plant self-organization: Auxin targets its own transporter through a cell-surface kinase complex in a positive feedback loop www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Learn about loss and retention of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in carnivorous plants in our latest publication in @newphyt.bsky.social ! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The great Claudio Scazzocchio- fungal geneticist and polymath - giving keynote first talk in Chania - on the evolution of nitrogen utilization in eukaryotes #IFBC25

Very excited to share that my first 1st author publication is available at the journal of #NewPhytologist ! Congratulations to the entire team that worked on this project including the #KewFungarium Team. 👏 🍄‍🟫 If you are interested in the topic, feel free to read it here: doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Really excited to share our latest paper led by @simonaube.bsky.social. Fascinating results examining whether regulatory mutations can lead to adaptation as fast as coding mutations do. #mevosky #evobio #evoSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share our Review on human PGC development covering the latest in vivo observations & in vitro developments, esp. in the last 5 years. Have a read! journals.biologists.com/dev/article/... From: @astar-gis.bsky.social @ki.se Warwick University, @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social

New preprint! 🐛 Root-knot nematodes hijack root cells, turning them into feeding sites and making plants very sick. Using a cross-species scRNA-seq approach we mapped this process and show how this knowledge can be used to engineer resistant crops.🌱 A summary🧵 : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...