Thought I would share an SEM image of a Meringosphaera I picked at Klubban (West Coast of Sweden) for my first post on Bluesky :) #protistsonsky

Really happy with our first expanded Paulinella picture! 😁 #ExM: @fburki.bsky.social Confocal microscopy: @annewalraven.bsky.social

Be aware of Tyrannomonas regina while having a swim this summer 🦖🦠🙀. Congratulations to @smallthingslab.bsky.social #protistsonsky academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Mutants of cell shape in Ciliophora provide clues to the variety of forms in protists. 1-Janus doublets vz the Metamonada double cell. 2-Multiplication of kinetids from 2 to 4 to 8, to many in hypermastigotes, opalinids. See Cell Shape review doi.org/10.1016/B978... #Protists #Eukaryogenesis

Just on time for the holidays! Happy to share the published version of the discovery of leptophytes, a new deep-branching and widespread group of microalgae based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs). Now with additional support from a mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG) of leptophytes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga). 🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Respiratory endosymbionts, that allow their ciliate hosts to breathe nitrate instead of (or in addition to) oxygen are frequent members of the wastewater microbiome. 🦠 🖥️🧬 Great to see this work by @louison-nicolas.bsky.social published in ISME coummuncations! doi.org/10.1093/isme...

One more week to apply to this PhD position on working out an endosymbiosis relationship in a protist. Please share widely to prospective PhD student #protistsonsky

Wow! Radler et al. doi.org/10.1101/2025... These are #asgardarchaea with what? Pseudopodia? Should we call them archaepodia analogously to archaellum? Mindblowing anyway!

And another Asgard paper. Cells in motion! Wow! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth! #protistsonsky 🧵

Our attempt to give multinucleate cells the spotlight they deserve (seriously, they’re everywhere), led by the fearless @mrosjac.bsky.social and with @Markus Ganter doi.org/10.32942/X2M... We’d love your feedback while this goes through the peer review process! #MicroEvoSky #ProtistsonSky 🧪🌏

🎉 There are currently 4 opportunities to join the Holt lab in beautiful Bath! 🎉 If you're interested in protists, parasites, and/or biodiversity then please check out our website: theholtlab.com/posts/ln5-21... 🚨 Deadlines vary between project. ✉️ Please reach out if you have any questions!

Weird word of the day: "kleptosquamy." The testate amoeba Awerintzewia cyclostoma steals scales from other amoeboid organisms to build its own shell. This one has robbed Quadrulella, Netzelia, various euglyphids, and even an Acanthocystis. Kleptosquamy! #amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #biology #nature

I however wonder why a new supergroup was erected (Disparia) when the existing supergroup Promethea precisely describes this grouping? Promethea was published here: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

Pretty excited to share our new preprint! Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, exciting microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more. #protistsonsky 1/2

The amoeba Difflugia bacillifera builds its shell from things that contain silica, and it is not particular about the source. These ones have incorporated whole shells from another testate amoeba (Euglypha), along with diatoms, algal cysts and chunks of rock. #Amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #peatlands

Super cool!! Every protist needs ExM! 🤩 Congratulations to everyone involved

✨X-ray crystallography reveals surprising twist in how proteins enter the unique photosynthetic organelles of Paulinella. The chromatophore targeting peptide (crTP) folds into a 3D structure, hinting that folded proteins cross peptidoglycan and inner membrane. (1/2) academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n #ProtistsOnSky tinyurl.com/2zxaund7

Our new paper on what heterotrophic nanoflagellates do in nature doi.org/10.1111/1462... or www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/.... Data available at doi.org/10.5281/zeno.... Funded by @ncn.gov.pl #ProtistsOnSky

Please join us next week for the second iteration of the DinoSphere Seminars! This time our two speakers will talk about host-associated dinoflagellates and any challenges they might have encountered when working with them. All current and future friends of dinoflagellates welcome! #ProtistsOnSky

Our collaboration with @mbonhivers.bsky.social is now out in @plosbiology.org! 🎉Using U-ExM, we mapped the formation of the flagellar pocket collar in T. brucei. Huge thanks to everyone involved — one step closer to #PhDone! #ExM #oneringtorulethemall #Bilbo1 #trypanosoma #protistsonsky

A new preprint from us using a single-cell genome pipeline to investigate diversity of uncultured Bodo spp. flagellates. We isolated 7 Bodo spp. cells from a single environmental sample and show that they represent 3 Bodo sp. each with a unique species of bacterial endosymbiont. #protistsonsky

⚠️New paper ➡️ isolating >600 freshwater microbes using dilution-to-extinction and low-nutrient, lake-mimicking media. 🤯Expands cultured diversity to ~70 % of detected genera and enables physiological studies of streamlined oligotrophs. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #protistsonsky

I've seen this several times: when Acantharians get big enough they like to eat tintinnids. And they always orient with the lorica opening pointed in: like they are slurping up a little jello shot. That glass house can't protect you from these weird predators little ciliate! 🦑 #protistsonsky

Dear all, registration for the upcoming EMBO/EMBL Symposium on "the cellular mechanics of symbiosis" is now OPEN 🤩 ! Feel free to register ! www.embl.org/about/info/c... #EESSymbiosis #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky @hassansalem.bsky.social @berasymbionts.bsky.social @embl.org

Are you interested in how climate change is reshaping #Arctic #marine ecosystems and if the risks associated with harmful algal blooms and marine #phycotoxins is increasing? 🧬❄️🌊 Come, join us in beautiful and vibrant Copenhagen - 2 weeks left to apply! #protistsonsky #ancientDNA #HAB

Now completely published :) Really proud of this paper led with Karla at @cstairs.bsky.social lab. doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Love #protists? Then you'd love this! Beautiful collection of hand-drawn critters represented here at the Oxford-Japan symposium on ethological dynamics in diorama environments sites.google.com/view/oxford-... #ciliates #testateamoeba #diatoms

I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪

Some little circus performers. #protistsonsky

Excited to share our third heterotrophic #Paulinella culture from Haida Gwaii, Canada! :) #ProtistsOnSky

New preprint 🌊🫶 "A diverse community constitutes global coccolithophore calcium carbonate stocks" Three large coccolithophores together hold about half of the global CaCO₃ stock! G. huxleyi <10% ➡️ climate models need to include this broader diversity! 📄 doi.org/10.1101/2025... #protistsonsky

We have several open positions in my group, funded from the ERC Grant on the Early Sequestered Germline of Fungi. We search broadly for applicants at both PhD and master-level, with a dedicated interest in fungal evolutionary biology. Please forward and RT! Find the positions here: su.varbi.com

found this lil guy in a sand sample recently 😍🦑 #protistsonsky

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

#FossilFriday an SEM image of a 1.4 billion year old #acritarch. The first image shows you the surface topography. The other images are pseudo x-rays showing the internal structures. I figured out how to do these tiny x rays on Weds, it's going to be really useful in future. #geology #paleontology

Our 2nd heterotrophic #Paulinella culture! Really proud of this one. After days at the microscope picking cells, I finally got it growing happily :) #protistsonsky

Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social

New paper is out! We have studied the cute tiny Discocelia plataet sp. n. to obtain the first molecular data of the order Discocelida and clarify its cell structure. All this for a better understanding of the evolution of Cercozoa. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n

Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...

It started as a master thesis project by Markus Hiltunen, and ended up in this publication in Science. What a fun project to work on! Thanks Markus - and all other coauthors, too, for a great team work! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The first paper from my PhD is out now! doi.org/10.1111/jeu.... We describe a new photosynthetic #Paulinella species from a brackish beach in British Columbia 🇨🇦 Big thanks to the co-authors Maia Palka and @alive-in-the-ocean.bsky.social, and my supervisor @fburki.bsky.social #protistsonsky

We’ve come a long way to sample on Haida Gwaii (BC). Inspired by this paper, we have traveled to the same place in the hope that we are going to find again these Paulinella species #protistsonsky www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

In our ongoing saga of description of new protists, we are happy to introduce Multisulcus malaysiensis, a deep-branching heterolobosean that forms highly unusual multiflagellated cells with multiple ventral grooves. Great work by @kristina-prokina.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....