Tens of thousands of papers published in 2025 contain fake/hallucinated citations, an analysis by Nature and Grounded AI suggests By @miryamnaddaf.bsky.social and Beth Quill | @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Really proud of this work led by Ruben Eichfeld! We show how a CBM domain gain/loss can rewire fungal chitinases, turning them from antifungal enzymes into immune-suppressing effectors that support plant symbiosis. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ever wondered how the #cuticle, a hallmark of land plants, was established? In our latest study, we show that the CUTIN SYNTHASE enzyme family was a key driver of this evolutionary innovation. #plantscience ▶️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A thread 🧵 [1/8]

Our new experimental evolution study across 30+ locations using the plant Arabidopsis thaliana —— we direct "see" adaptation and extinction to different climates at the genetic as it happens! Read it in Science dx.doi.org/10.1126/scie... @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @hhmi-science.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 🇨🇦

Madness. A bacterium with a 10kb genome, lost replication initiation, translation.., relies on symbiotic host. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⚠️⚠️ @jacquet-chris.bsky.social and I are organizing the 2nd "non seed plant" French meeting. As for the one in 2025, the goal is to better structure our emerging community across French institutes. It will take place in Toulouse, June 24th-25th. Registration 🔽 nonseedplants26.sciencesconf.org

🥳 Happy that our manuscript, first published on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social has been accepted for publication in "Microbiome" and will be part of a collection on "Harnessing plant microbiomes to improve performance and mechanistic understanding" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🎉 Last week @antonkraege.bsky.social brilliantly defended his PhD thesis @unicologne.bsky.social entitled "Functional and Evolutionary Characterisation of Antimicrobial Effectors Secreted by Verticillium dahliae to Shape Host Microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone

1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥 We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤. Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Hiding in plain sight! 2.3M conserved non-coding sequences traced back 300M years across 284 plant species Ground-breaking study out in First Release @science.org from labs of @madelaineb.bsky.social, @idane.bsky.social & Zach Lippman ▶️ doi.org/10.1126/scie... ▶️ www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/hiding-...

Just discovered this wonderful adaptation of our maize moving map (figshare.com/articles/fig...) by @andikur.bsky.social .

Thrilled to see this published! 😄 Our dispatch examines potential additional fungal symbionts in lichen partnerships and the key challenges in unraveling their biology. Thanks for involving me in this @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social @currentbiology.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Please check the latest from our lab! Root-fungus senses host nutrient status, determining its infection strategies!

Happy to share our latest work in collaboration with the lab of @pengbo10.bsky.social. Here, we describe that a formin protein mediates the polarity switch from root hair to infection thread growth during symbiotic interactions. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I am happy to announce the launch of a new Arabidopsis genomics resource! Check out arabidopsislyrata.org Now you can easily look at the natural genetic variation across the entire species range of A. lyrata and A. arenosa.

🔬 ENSA research uncovers SYFO2, a molecular gatekeeper that reorganizes actin in legume root hairs to allow rhizobial entry. The team showed that tomato can activate its own SYFO2 pathway, revealing deep evolutionary roots of symbiosis @science.org @ottlab.bsky.social @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social

Our work on #hornwort #pyrenoids is finally out in @science.org! 🎉 We uncovered how hornworts pack their Rubisco into pyrenoids and successfully recreated them in Arabidopsis. A key step toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis in crops @btiscience.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very convincing call to cancel your ChatGTP subscription if you have one. There are very good reasons, it's painless as there are alternatives, and it may form part of an effective boycott! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fungal genome sequencing for free! 👇🏼 #GGFungi2026

Be part of OMGN! Open to all researchers with an interest in oomycetes, from molecular genetics & genomics to biology, population biology, and ecology, at either an experimental or a computational level. Investigators new to the field are always welcome oomycetes.com

@thaisdalsasso.bsky.social is applying new tools to address the evolution and functional diversification of secreted proteins of fungal plant pathogen. Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧵 New paper out in @PlantPhysiology! We asked: how do trees talk to their fungal partners during ectomycorrhizal symbiosis? Turns out, tiny secreted peptides play a big role. 1/ Read the full paper here 👇 academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

🚨Job Alert – Please RT! We’re looking for bright minds to join our community! We are looking for 12 postdocs and 7 PhD students! Details on all projects and application: www.ceplas.eu/en/training-... @leibnizipk.bsky.social @mpipz.bsky.social @hhu.de @fz-juelich.de @unicologne.bsky.social

🎉📣 #TAIR12, the latest reannotation of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome, is now available under accession number PRJEB100887 on ENA and NCBI! Thank you all the volunteer researchers whose hard work has made this possible! #plantscience #plantbiology 🧪 bit.ly/3ZHtneT

📣 12 open postdoc positions in @ceplas.bsky.social !! www.ceplas.eu/en/training-... We @teamthomma.bsky.social look for a postdoc on The Secret Lives of Soil-Borne Fungal Pathogens: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Intermicrobial Interactions in Soils (see project 4)

How specific are heritable symbioses? And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species? We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com! 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#transgenerational transmission of a core #microbiome that protects against downy mildew from soil to #phyllosphere Fantastic and important study by @jellespooren.bsky.social @rlberendsen.bsky.social @cornepieterse.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #plantscience

📣 Our latest story just dropped on bioRxiv:: A structurally unique effector shared between Verticillium dahliae and Fusarium oxysporum is involved in cotton defoliation and virulence on other hosts www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller? Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase. 1/n

We’re hiring! Postdoctoral Researcher / Research Assistant @KamounLab “Biology and Applications of Plant Immune Receptors” www.tsl.ac.uk/working-at-t...

🌍🍄Host the future of mycorrhizal science The IMS invites bids to host ICOM15 (2030). 📄 Guidelines 👉 mycorrhizas.org/wp-content/u... 🗓 Proposal deadline: May 29, 2026 📣 Host announced: July 17, 2026 #ICOM15 @mycorrhizaims.bsky.social #Mycorrhiza

And publish in society owned journals like @theplantcell.bsky.social @theplantjournal.bsky.social Plant Biotechnology Journal, @jxbotany.bsky.social @newphyt.bsky.social @plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social and many others!

#ProtistsOnSky no 'swimming' by 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘺𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢, definitively no 'staying still'. just a relaxed walk towards the lunch...

Please share! We are looking for a PhD student (4 years) starting from 01/05/2026 at @ipbhalle.bsky.social! If you are interested in plant immunity, receptor biochemistry and evolution, consider applying! Deadline 09/03/2026. Application portal: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/10-phd-posit...

1/9 Our latest paper on immunity mechanisms in Marchantia just out @pnas.org ! 🔽 Close collaboration between our former PhD students @karimaelm.bsky.social and @chloe-beaulieu.bsky.social ! and the old gard @jacquet-chris.bsky.social @maximebonhomme.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New perspective on the evolutionary potential of symbiotic interactions! Is there something special about symbiosis that leads to new traits and adaptations? If so, how would we know and how would this work? academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

New paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Can plant pathogens boost vector fitness? Together with @hassansalem.bsky.social, we review how phytopathogens can spread further by moonlighting as insect symbionts 🪲 More on this nifty lifestyle in @annualreviews.bsky.social! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

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

For anyone interested in the history of molecular biology, I cannot recommend Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation highly enough. One of the great book on the history of science. I have two copies because a actually wore out the first one (paperback) www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...

Have a look at our most recent preprint, where we looked at transcriptional regulation during tomato root colonization by Rhizophagus irregularis.

Please share! My group at @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social is offering a post-doctoral position (4 years). We look for a structural biologist with experience in Cryo-EM/Cryo-ET to investigate the mechanisms of host invasion by pathogenic fungi. Deadline February 28th! uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

We’re looking for a postdoc to investigate Pseudomonas viridiflava virulence across diverse plant lineages. The 3yr position will combine plant and microbial molecular biology to understand core processes of infection - email for more info & apply online @ www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

What enables a fungus to invade a mammal host? @marco-guerreiro.bsky.social unravels signatures of translation adaptation among pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of Trichosporonales. See more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎉 Yesterday we enjoyed the glorious defence of @gabriellapetti.bsky.social of her @unicologne.bsky.social PhD thesis on "Homologous antimicrobial proteins in plants and fungi: conserved mechanisms shaping the plant microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone ..mind the crown modeled after the Ave1 NMR structure!😍

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

Genome editing in brown algae! 🧬🪸🌿 Now out in Cell Reports Methods! Excited to share this highly efficient, transgene-free CRISPR–Cas genome editing protocol for brown algae, requiring no cloning and no specialized equipment. doi.org/10.1016/j.cr... #CRISPR #BrownAlgae @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

‘Science journals retract 500 papers a month. This is why it matters. A small team of volunteers is tracking thousands of falsified studies, including cases of bribery, fraud and plagiarism’ Ivan Oransky @retractionwatch.com, @alicedreger.bsky.social @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...