Some reflections on #Fungal26 This was a great meeting as always but set against some turbulent times of course, which meant many regular attendees were not present. This thread is mainly for them. However, the proportion of first-time attendees was very high and very international. #Fungal26 1/15

How does root invasion differ between endophyte & pathogen? We are interested in this dichotomy of expression in the most important root disease of wheat, take-all: Stealth vs SEVs Exceptional tenacity from Stella (looking for a PhD) and the team @earlhaminst.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social 🙏

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...

Distribution of Gene Tree Topologies with Duplication, Loss, and Coalescence https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.19.700405v1

Mutualistic microbes drive niche expansion yet constrain diversification https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.14.699472v1

Gene function predicts divergence across molecular levels https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.13.699300v1

Have we been overstating the role of transposable elements in adaptation to local or rapidly changing environmental conditions? Happy to share my (somewhat unpopular?) opinion paper on this matter: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thanks to those who already shared the link!

Are you excited about pangenomics? If so, join us in Edinburgh on 8-9th June to discuss the latest methods & insights from using these approaches across biodiversity! More details here: royalsociety.org/science-even... Organised together with @henrylnorth.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social!

Spent last week at the microscope 🔬✨, and seeing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi up close for the first time—hyphae, arbuscules, vesicles—was absolutely mind-blowing. Small but mighty partners of plant roots 🌿. Sharing a few of my favourite shots. #Mycorrhiza #fungi

Big congratulations @tobybarilbio.bsky.social! Please check out and share our final version of the transposon mobilization work in a fungal pathogen - out now in Nature Communications www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A quick tutorial blog on a method I haven't seen before to plot gene gain/loss from e.g. CAFE5 across a phylogeny - and clearly shows I always have fungi on the mind 🤓🍄 #rstats #ggplot2 rowena-h.github.io/data-visuali...

@tobybarilbio.bsky.social and I are very excited to release MycoMobilome! A very extensive effort to discover, QC and annotate TEs across the fungal kingdom. 👉 Ready-to-use for your own genome with a simple tutorial! 👉 Metadata about TEs discovered in your genome! 👉 Contribute and get recognition!

Super excited to see our bioRxiv paper out! It furthers our understanding of an FHB resistance locus in timopheevii with some DON resistance too!

PHD: What does an ‘optimal’ community of #bacteria and #fungi look like for #pathogen suppression? That's a key question to explore in this fully-funded #PhDproject with @neilhall.bsky.social, @mcmullan0.bsky.social and @rowenahill.bsky.social at the Earlham Institute.

PHD: Are you interested in gene regulation, #immune function, or tech development? We have a fully-funded 4-year #PhDproject with @whatchamacaulay.bsky.social at the Earlham Institute and @tiagocluis.bsky.social at Imperial looking at niche cell–cell communication. ➡️ buff.ly/M7u6thJ

📣 New @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social preprint, another joint-venture of @wolki95.bsky.social & @antonkraege.bsky.social, co-directed by @nicksnelders.bsky.social. Here’s a 🧵

We are advertising a PhD project investigating a cellular mechanism that ensures protein quality control during mRNA translation in plants. Please get in touch on here or via email if you are interested and I can provide further details! Lab website: sites.google.com/site/danielg...

Great new postdoc fellowship for foundational plant research. If you’re into genetics and genomics of plant reproductive evolution or adaptive convergence (incl in the cool and charismatic nightshades!) I’d be happy to talk about possible projects! www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

PhD studentship Come help us understand the wheat rhizosphere at the Earlham Institute 🦠 Working at the interface of fungal antagonists & pathogens (@rowenahill.bsky.social @neilhall.bsky.social ), host genetic diversity (Simon Griffiths -JIC) and bacterial community diversity (Jacob Malone -JIC)

Professorship in plant genetics. The Botanical Institute at Kiel University is advertising a W2 professorship. Great opportunity to do plant research in the north of Germany. See: www.berufungen.uni-kiel.de/de/dateien/o...

A genetic map of human metabolism across the allele frequency spectrum https://www.europesays.com/uk/474140/ Study design The UKB is a prospective cohort study from the UK that contains more than 500,000 volunteers…#uk #news #uknews

🍄 Today marks #UKFungusDay where we get to celebrate the weird and wonderful kingdom of Fungi. As well as being fundamental to a healthy ecosystem, and often fascinating to spot, #Fungi can be devastating to plant and animal populations.

Was a pleasure to contribute a small part to this massive WGS effort of Kew's fungarium! @estergaya.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social Check out the paper @newphyt.bsky.social 👉 doi.org/10.1111/nph.70472

New OA Article: "Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions" rdcu.be/eDWJI With News & Views: "Diversity favoured: heterozygosity attracts crossovers" rdcu.be/eDWKQ

It was a delight to have Guillaume Delhaye and Torda Varga (@rbgkew.bsky.social) at @earlhaminst.bsky.social last week, talking to a packed Norwich Research Park audience about mushroom-forming and mycorrhizal fungi from molecule to ecosystem! 🍄🧬🌳 @neilhall.bsky.social @norwichmicro.bsky.social

Our editors write: - Wheat immunity: "Unlocking yellow rust resistance" rdcu.be/eBbSJ about rdcu.be/eBbT0 - Auxin signalling: "A rack for the hook" rdcu.be/eBbTg about www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

How predictably does complex trait adaptation proceed over space and time in wild populations? doi.org/10.1093/evle... Now in @evolletters.bsky.social by @skylerberardi.bsky.social, @paulrschmidt.bsky.social et al. 📷: Dr. Rush Dhillon

Advances in computational methods for inferring networks from #genome-scale data and guidelines for deriving biological insights from #phylogenetic networks www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Really nice. Especially nice RIP result linked to ancestral sex hypotheses. Which then links nicely to plastic genomic regions and adaptation in the face of asexual reproduction.

Hey, Miles' @milesroberts.bsky.social beautiful paper showing that sequence diversity missed by standard methods contributes to Lewontin's paradox is officially published in @evolletters.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Keen to work in #PlantSciences? 🌿 Applications are open for a new John Innes Foundation Internship with Dr Carolina Grandellis at the Earlham Biofoundry. 🧬 You'll work on #bioengineering approaches for plant sciences, utilising high-throughput platforms at the Earlham Institute.

Using an alignment-free k-mer-based phylogenetic method, @rowenahill.bsky.social, @mcmullan0.bsky.social, and the team found that relationships between entire Starships differed from those inferred from captain genes. Read more about Starships fungal transposons in #G3journal: buff.ly/vxOe5oq

In case you want to know more about Kew’s Fungarium and our sequencing work! #Fungi #museomics @rbgkew.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/video/248375...

Our paper on phylogenetics of fungal Starship TEs is now on the cover of the June issue of Genetics @genetics-gsa.bsky.social 🙂 academic.oup.com/genetics/iss... @mcmullan0.bsky.social @earlhaminst.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

While helping out on a cool genomics project recently, I came to realise I’d been taught a pretty big inaccuracy about the events that occur at fertilization. I suspect that almost everyone reading this has the same misapprehension, so let’s do some learning together: 1/

If you missed the @wheatgenome.bsky.social webinar yesterday with @simongriff.bsky.social "Breeding: Why we need to start over again" watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0kZ...

💬 “When we looked at the replication start sites we’d identified, we discovered only 20% of them had been reported previously. The majority were newly discovered with this approach." 📃 Researchers use ultra #longreads to reveal where #DNAreplication starts in the #humangenome: buff.ly/pQWGasr

Kmer based phylogenetic methods like Mashtree (@lskatz.github.io), are really powerful for difficult to align and repetitive regions including TEs, Integrative and conjugative elements & Starships etc. Really nice work from @rowenahill.bsky.social and thanks to collaborators @rothamsted.bsky.social

Thanks for posting @reviewcommons.org If you're interested you can also find the reviewed version here: doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Really keen to get people's perspectives on the population genetics of reservoirs, and what they tell us about variation associated with emergent crop pathogens.

New Paper out! apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/epdf/10.... We wanted to know how much genetic variation exists for Zymoseptoria in a single wheat field.

💬 "Some #fungi can change their behaviour in different environments, so understanding how a changing climate might affect fungal behaviour – and what role Starships play in this – is vital.” Starships enable new frontier of fungal genome evolution 🚀 🧬 🌱

📃 A new study from the Earlham Institute and @rothamsted.bsky.social reveals insights into large mobile #fungal #genome elements - Starships - and how they jump between fungal species and influence their evolution. 🖥️ 🧬 🧪 ➡️ buff.ly/R5SF9j8 @rowenahill.bsky.social #Transposons #PlantScience

Excited to share our latest preprint 🥳 Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen @danielcroll.bsky.social #TESky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive. No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. 1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

Conserved effectors underpin the virulence of liverwort-isolated Pseudomonas in divergent plants Very happy to share the published version of our work on natural Marchantia-Pseudomonas interactions. Out now in Current Biology: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Happy to share that our paper "Analyses of Transposable Elements in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Support Evolutionary Parallels With Filamentous Plant Pathogens" is out. academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

💬 "Fungi are notoriously challenging when it comes to DNA extraction. The challenge is to extract high concentrations of DNA while preserving strand lengths and integrity" In a new blog, Research Assistant Michelle guides you through her adapted protocols for the extraction of HMW #DNA from fungi.🧪

Excited to share the first publication from my PhD!! We identify premature termination codons specific to the cheetah in genes associated with male fertility and immunity 🐆🧬 @earlhaminst.bsky.social @whaerty.bsky.social academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Funded #PhD with Dr Chris Quince at the Earlham Institute and @quadraminstitute.bsky.social, working on understanding the mechanisms of faecal #microbiome transplantation, with major potential impact to the treatment of IBD. buff.ly/AqvE0j5 @mmbdtp.bsky.social