🪸 New paper alert 🧬 We developed a highly accurate diagnostic tool that classifies between two #coral diseases: white plague and stony coral tissue loss disease. This model accurately classified in situ collected diseased samples, supporting its use as a diagnostic tool. rdcu.be/eCNic

Check out our new paper on adopting a trait-based framework for protist diversity! We make the case for a unified protist trait database, how to build it, and how it could transform research on protist ecology and evolution. #protistsonsky

Hello there 🦋 Happy to share our piece "Towards a trait-based framework for protist ecology and evolution" in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Let's build a unified trait 📏 database to unlock transformative insights into protist 🔬 ecology 🌍 and evolution ⏳ ▶️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ti... #protistsonsky

#JoinOurTeam 📣 L'#IBE_Barcelona ofereix dues posicions a la Unitat de Gestió de Projectes i Ajuts de Recerca!📣 🔹Tècnic/a d’internacionalització 🔹Gestor post-award de projectes ERC 📆 Aplica abans del 21 de setembre 👉https://www.ibe.upf-csic.es/work-with-us/job-offers

The Mydlarz Lab has a second coral machine learning paper out this month! @emily-vanburen.bsky.social developed a diagnostic tool that classifies two coral diseases: white plague and #SCTLD. 463 genes, some involved in inflammation and protein trafficking, characterized the diseases. rdcu.be/eCNic

🚨Job alert 🚨 The University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science (Rosenstiel) and Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) are looking for an omics lab manager 🧬 careers.miami.edu/us/en/job/R1...

Looking for a postdoc in coral-associated bacterial genomes/metagenomes/metatranscriptomes? This would be an excellent program to support your original research ideas in a lab with extensive resources, samples, and datasets.

Share widely please! Opportunity to be involved in highly interdisciplinary research focusing on coral reefs. High-tech lab where robots meet coral 🦾🤖🪸

Pseudoalteromonas is a novel symbiont of marine invertebrates that exhibits broad patterns of phylosymbiosis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.22.671635v1

Want to help us image and understand those incredible samples Felix just collected at UBC - and many more? 2 more days to apply! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j... #ExM #PlanetaryCellBiology 🧪🧬🔬🌍🌱🦠

Leaving Academia: Insights from Evolutionary Biologists on Their Career Transitions and Job Satisfaction https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671061v1

FANTASIA's paper is finally out! Check it out if you're interested in alternative methods to homology for functional annotation in nonmodel organisms 🦐🐙🪱🧬🐝🪲 @gemmaeling.bsky.social @amrojasm.bsky.social @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @cabd-upo-csic.bsky.social @csic.es www.nature.com/articles/s42...

A few of my favourite things! Microbes, Zymo, Oxford Nanopore, and of course chocolate.

I wrote (ranted) on experimental design as I was frustrated as an editor at how little guidance students were getting. I underestimated the interest in the issue: it has been downloaded 10,000+ times! Clearly it’s something we need to be talking about more. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🚨🚨We’re hiring graduate students!🚨🚨 We are hiring 1-2 PhD students to start sometime in 2026 (Fall start dates preferred). Opportunities to work on a diversity of eco-evo-immuno and symbiosis projects! Deadline Oct 15! Please share broadly! Info here: tinyurl.com/y2abjsem

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Genomes of nitrogen-fixing eukaryotes reveal an alternate path for organellogenesis #protistsonsky

Hey wild immunologists of blue sky… do you work on a non-model taxa??? Would you have 15 min to spare to zoom in and share your research with my comparative immunology class? I’m looking to spotlight real research this semester. Please spread the word and reach out if you’re interested!

Our paper describing our new improved GFmix models for phylogenetic inference that capture site-and-branch heterogeneity in amino acid composition. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New ‪preprint! Through plastid MAGs and 18S rRNA gene retrieval 🧬 we identify chromerids (including a novel clade ⭐) associated with marine and freshwater microbialites across the globe 🌎, expanding their ecological niche beyond coral reefs 🪸. #ProtistsOnSky #MicroSky #Algae

🚨New Preprint Alert🚨 P. strigosa, a reef-building coral shows tightly regulated transcriptional control over natural diel cycles. #CoralReefs #Symbiosky #bioinformatics #marinemicrobes #protistsonsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats to @joanakrause.bsky.social for getting the first prize for the best poster presentation!🪸🦠

With the help of @bradweilerdives.bsky.social and @fonamental.bsky.social !!

🔥project looking at the corallicolids within bearded fireworms found feeding along a black band disease transition line on an OANN colony led by @ambonacolta.bsky.social and I 🔎🔥🪱. It’s a short and fun read, enjoy! Thanks to all our collaborators and the guidance of @fonamental.bsky.social!

🌟 Taken together, we suggest fireworms are a reservoir and potential vector for corallicolids, moving parasites between coral hosts via feces 🪱💩🪸. This deepens our understanding of coral reef host-parasite interactions and reveals exciting new corallicolid ecology!

🧪 To dig deeper, we teamed up with Dr. Candace Grimes, who amplified 16S rRNA genes in fireworms across body compartments back in 2017. With this data we confirmed a high corallicolid apicoplast presence in the gut and feces of worms 🪱💩

🔎 We found corallicolids were abundant in all sampled worms — and distinct from the ones in the corals the worms fed on!

🔥 This exciting discovery started with an interesting observation: corallivourous fireworms feeding along the disease line of a black band diseased Orbicella annularis colony! The @delcampolab.bsky.social team spotted this while investigating coral diseases in partnership with CARMABI 🧪🏝️

🚨🧵 Out now in ISMEJ (@ismepublications.bsky.social)! We find abundant corallicolid sequences within bearded fireworms (𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘢) across reefs and years in Curaçao 🇨🇼! 🪱🪸 This is the first report of corallicolids inside a non-anthozoan host! #ProtistsOnSky #MicroSky #SymbioSky #Corals

Using 18S and 16S rRNA gene data from multiple reefs, corals, and fireworms we show that this association is consistent with an active infection of fireworms and we propose that H. carunculata is potentially a vector moving corallicolids between coral hosts through its faeces 🪸💩

What first started off as a an interesting observation of fireworms on the transition line of diseased Orbicella annularis in Curacao, led to a discovery of a new reservoir of corallicolids in tropical reef environments (Photo by @bradweilerdives.bsky.social)

🚨New preprint🚨 Here we provide the first evidence for a non-anthozoan host of Corallicolids: the bearded fire worm (Hermodice carunculata) 🪱🔥 #ProtistsOnSky #Symbiosky #CoralReefs

🚨New Preprint Alert: Are bearded fireworms🪱 acting as vectors for Corallicolids? Here we show evidence that H. carunculata is acting as a reservoir for these coral-infecting Apicomplexans, but corallicolid functional roles in the holobiont are still unknown! 🪸🦠. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...