Gewinner des Tages der #Bild-Zeitung ist heute die Mikrobe des Jahres der @vaam-microbes.bsky.social , Penicillium! #moty

The Microbiome Ecology group wishes all a relaxing holiday! #MicrobiomeEcology at #InstituteofBiologyLeiden / @leidenscience.bsky.social

Aspect Ratio as Driver of Bacterial Competition! Our latest work uncovers this simple and powerful determinant of bacterial competition. We demonstrate that longer bacteria consistently dominate colony fronts—even when outnumbered. The mechanism? Collective alignment. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cross feeding between algae and bacteria 👇🏼

bioRxiv by @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social from @matthutchings.bsky.social on the role of MtrAB in Streptomyces venezuelae

#TansleyReview: Mycelial dynamics in arbuscular mycorrhizal #fungi Vasilis Kokkoris 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue #PlantScience

Evolution of rhizobial siderophore utilization via accessory xeno-siderophore receptors and flexible intake machinery for self-produced siderophores academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Mycorrhizal control of microbial gene transcription and taxonomic composition in the rhizosphere and bulk soil #ISMEJournal from Ricardo Arraiano-Castilho academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Emergent collective alignment gives competitive advantage to longer cells during range expansion @natcomms.nature.com from @jauffred.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Weekend morning walk with 🐕

Biofilm structure as a key factor in antibiotic tolerance: insights from Bacillus subtilis model systems NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes from Iztok Dogsa www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A 3D-printed capillary tube holder for high-throughput chemotaxis assays #JBacteriol journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Natural genetic transformation of the wheat rhizosphere microbial community through DNA inoculations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.18.695157v1

🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨 The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists Interested? Get in touch via direct message careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e... #MicroSky 🧪 #PostDoc @univie.ac.at

Good memory in Leiden!❤️ And nice cooperation with Akos! Thanks! More work will come next year! #HappyScience #Congratulations

Hyphal growth determines spatial organization and coexistence in a pathogenic polymicrobial community in a spatially structured environment #ISMEJournal by @mlaenoc.bsky.social et al academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

One more manuscript acceptance letter before the end of 2025! 🎉 Congratulations, @jiyuxie.bsky.social! What a superb story on Bacillus-Trichoderma cooperation to fight against plant pathogen Fusarium The 4th acceptance letter that I received in 2025 from #ISMEJournal 😀 #MicrobiomeEcology

Bacterial conjugation can restructure biofilms and increase their resilience while constraining host cell dispersal in @currentbiology.bsky.social from Carey Nadell www.cell.com/current-biol...

Microbial dynamics: Conjugation drives a fitness trade-off in bacterial biofilms @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatch www.cell.com/current-biol...

Born #OnThisDay in 1922, Esther Lederberg was the first to isolate the lambda phage in 1951. She characterised the lysogenic phase, whereby the phage are able to integrate into the bacterial genome, staying dormant. This discovery made them a model tool of study, leading to many more breakthroughs.

Offensive role of the Bacillus extracellular matrix in driving metabolite-mediated dialogue and adaptive strategies with the fungus Botrytis #ISMEJournal by @aliciaperezlorente.bsky.social et al from @diegromero.bsky.social and @daniel-petras.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Everything is everywhere but Escherichia coli adapts to different niches -in #ISMEJournal academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Pete Greenberg's view in #JBacteriol: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, my model for research on quorum sensing, biofilms, and opportunistic infections journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Host and microbial defenses against fungal invaders in a fungus-farming termite -in Insect Science from Itthayakorn Promputtha with @kbodawatta.bsky.social @michaelpoulsenucph.bsky.social Termites ➕ Bacillus/Burkholderia 🆚 Aspergillus/Trichoderma molds onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The FsrA-Mediated Iron-Sparing Response Regulates the Biosynthesis of the Epipeptide EPE in Bacillus subtilis #MolMicrobiol by Sarah Miercke, Rabea Ghandour, Kai Papenfort and Thorsten Mascher onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Unveiling the landscape of prokaryotic global regulators through deep protein language models -in #mSystems journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

2025 has been generous with 17 publications in ISME J(3x), Cell Rep(2x), Trends Microbiol, Nat Microbiol, mSystems(2x), Biofilm(2x), Commun Biol, Curr Opin Microbiol, microLIFE, Nucleic Acids Res, Anim Microbiome, FEMS Microbiol Eco #MicrobiomeEcology at #LeidenBiology @leidenscience.bsky.social

As my time as a researcher at FSU Jena and @microverse.bsky.social in the group of Rosalind Allen comes to an end, I warmly thank all collaborators and colleagues for the excellent science and discussions! 🚨I am (yes, again...) on the job market, looking for higher positions -->

New in #SubtiWiki: Clusters of structural homologs! Enjoy the new feature! Thank you, Oskar Geissel & @c-elfmann.bsky.social @uni-goettingen.de @imprsgs.bsky.social

End of the year bowling of the Microbiome Ecology group (Institute of Biology, Leiden)

Morning run into the dark… with 🐕

Spatial constraint drives negative frequency dependent selection of phage weaponization bioRxiv from Carey Nadell and Ankur Dalia www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phosphorus stress and spatial confinement lower the threshold for quorum-sensing activation of redox-active metabolite production in Pseudomonas synxantha bioRxiv from Dianne Newman www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Gene expression cycles drive non-exponential bacterial growth -in Phys Rev Research journals.aps.org/prresearch/a...

It is that time of the year when @leidenscience.bsky.social offers hot chocolate and (alcohol free) Glühwein to all at the Faculty Members of three research groups from IBL on the photo #3rdfloor

Delighted to see the main work from my PhD finally published in @mbio.bsky.social! It all started with the observation that deleting the cutRS two-component system in S. venezuelae caused this amazing explorer phenotype in the presence of glucose. But what was going on?! (1/n)

A new study from the Rudner lab defines a comprehensive set of genes required for spore formation in Bacillus anthracis. Similarities and striking differences between the Bacillus subtilis model and this important human pathogen are described. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41385520/

Happy to post our latest paper: doi.org/10.1111/1751... Biases accumulate with age, so it is essential to begin teaching critical thinking as early as possible. The problems are HOW, given the complexity of its theory, and IN WHAT EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT? The solutions we propose in this paper are...

Very happy to see this remarkable work published. Led by @tommclean.bsky.social and @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social. We show how Streptomyces bacteria sense & respond to misfolded secreted proteins. A great collaboration with @barriewilks.bsky.social #microsky 1/2 journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....

Why so many co-circulating #Klebsiella pneumoniae clones? By studying >7000 isolates, @bananabenana.bsky.social @kelwyres.bsky.social &co identify structured, clone-specific #metabolic specialisation across the population that enables reciprocal cross-feeding @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4qdC2B2

PGPR consortia prediction tool… why cannot I find any experiment with plants in the paper despite title claiming functional plant-growth promotion? BSocial Tool Deciphers Highly Functional Plant Growth-Promoting Bacterial Consortia enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Now available online: the new 2.0 version of gutSMASH, with capabilities to detect 12 new types of catabolic gene clusters relevant to gut microbiome ecology, as well as predictions of their regulation through transcription factor binding site detection. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

During the spring of 2026, we will open a position as Assistant/Associate Professor in Plant Biochemistry. If you think plant terpenoid biochemistry is your thing (or you know a good candidate for this), and you want to move to the middle of France, then follow @lbvpam.bsky.social for updates.

Identification of sporulation genes in Bacillus anthracis highlights similarities and significant differences with Bacillus subtilis @plosbiology.org from David Rudner journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Check our new perspective paper exploring how the seed holobiont goes to sleep 😴 and reactivate for germination. A lot of exciting research to be done to understand dormancy mechanisms in microbes and plants ☘️ @emersys-irhs.bsky.social @irhs-angers.bsky.social

Scanning electron microscopy of hyphal ectobiont bacteria within mycelial extracellular matrices -in Biophysical Reports by Davin Browner and Andrew Adamatzky bacterial ectobiont Bacillus subtilis on fungal hyphae of Hericium erinaceus www.cell.com/biophysrepor...

Gempipe: a tool for drafting, curating, and analyzing pan and multi-strain genome-scale metabolic models #mSystems from Nicola Vitulo with @basteusink.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Dormancy and reactivation of the seed and its microbiome: a holobiont perspective #mSystems review by Davide Gerna, @thomas-chadelaud.bsky.social, @fly-florian.bsky.social, @lmatthieul.bsky.social, Armelle Darrasse and @microbialmarie.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Just got word that we are a go for the Bacterial Cell Biology and Development GRS and GRC at Southern New Hampshire University! GRS will be on June 5-6, 2027 GRC will be from June 6-11, 2027 Block off your calendars Prokaryotic Cell Biologists! More details to come! Please repost!

Franziska Faber and I are recruiting shared postdocs, PhD students to work on Fusobacterium & new BGCs. www.helmholtz-hiri.de/fileadmin/HI...