Happy to announce that a new opinion paper of our group just came out: A conceptual framework to dissect emergent functions in microbial communities with @swagatika.bsky.social @sharvari27.bsky.social @anjanaprasad.bsky.social @palshubharthi.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Applications are open for the 2027 Smith Conservation Research Fellowship! This postdoc supports early-career scientists advancing innovative, applied conservation research across the U.S. & territories. conbio.org/publications/scb-news-blog/smith-fellows-2027-call-for-proposals-announced

Here's a chance to support an inspiring Indigenous-led agroforestry project in the Amazon : ) maearth.com/meli-bees/ag...

Proposed terminology for referring to the homes of #symbionts within their ( #insect ) hosts " #Symbiotic organs in #insects: diversity, functional implications, and terminology " w/ @kaltenpoth-lab.bsky.social and co., not in bsky doi.org/10.1098/rstb... #SymbioSky

really lovely piece of work from @raufs.bsky.social et al., Complex multicellularity is linked with expanded specialized metabolite production in microorganisms www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint from our lab Statistical learning of bacterial growth in combinatorially constructed environments, led by brilliant PhD student Andrea Arrabal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We systematically study nutrient-nutrient interactions in bacterial growth under carbon-limiting conditions.

We are very excited to share our latest. We thought that soft sweeps would be the only type of sweep spreading across human gut microbiomes. Turns out many are hard! Reach @peterlaurin.bsky.social 's thread on why! And tomorrow at #SMBE2026 I will share this work and more!

Interested in wildlife microbiomes? Check out the latest @microbiomevif.bsky.social podcast episode, where @elinvidevall.bsky.social explains how the #microbiome influences health and survival in wild animal populations, and why microbes matter for #wildlife conservation efforts! 🧪🦒🦌

Bonus content for the #WorldMicrobiomeDay 🌐🦠 We asked microbiome researchers about the impact of Artificial intelligence on their research. Here's what they had to say: rdcu.be/fqEkp #MicrobiomeSky #MicroSky

1/2 🚨 New commentary in @pnas.org "Maynard Smith’s protein-space analogy, realized" Here, we invoke Maynard Smith's protein space to discuss a study proposing that evolution has explored a tiny fraction of functional protein sequences, chiefly b/c of common ancestry: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New Perspective out co-led with Lisa Pagani! We look at how microbiome ecology and evolution shape AMR across scales, from within-host communities to hospitals and environments, and how mathematical models can help us understand them. @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint from the lab, led by PhD student Leopold Preuß, with @marta-tischer.bsky.social, @cblei.bsky.social, and others. We show genomic evidence for #Wolbachia being an overlooked nutritional symbiont in solitary #bees. #SymbioSky https://tinyurl.com/3wzt27hy#Wolbachia#bees.#SymbioSky Short thread: (1/8)

Our paper on the evolution of cellular miniaturization is now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... A short recap 🧵

I'm hiring a #postdoc!! 🥳 Official ad is making its way through HR but If you have interests in statistical methodology OR microbial bioinformatics, please reach out via my UW email. I'll share the description with you when it's available. 🔥😻

🚨 Registration for VEGA26 is 👏 officially open 👏 🚨 The 5th edition of our Viral EcoGenomics and Applications symposium will be held November 18-19, 2026, on the UC Berkeley campus 🧬 🦠 🔬 🧫 Event website ➡️ jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us... Registration link ➡️ cvent.me/e0RnA0

I will be in Cleveland for #Evol2026 in 2 weeks so feel free to chat with me if you will be in attendance! 🐠

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Very cool results! I do wonder how the "queen cell as gatekeeper" model fits with the fact that queens can be reared successfully in artificial systems in the lab. Could the queen cell be contributory rather than essential?

A question to bacteriology/phage friends 🦠 Can anyone point me to a paper showing plaques forming in E. coli that are spotted after co-incubation with a conjugative donor (e.g., after mating using a conjugation helper)? Any help will be most appreciated 🙂 #phage

Reminder — UW #Microbiology has an open search for an Assistant Professor, focusing on fundamental problems in #bacteriology! If you or someone you know would be suitable, here's the ad: apply.interfolio.com/185622

Big news: I’ll be joining the University of Oklahoma as an Assistant Professor in January 2027! 🎉 My lab will study plant microbiomes, fungal ecology & restoration. Recruiting graduate students for Fall 2027! Interested in joining the lab or collaborating? Let’s connect! BOOMER SOONER 🏈🍄🌱✨

Tropical Bee Assemblage Diversity Decreases With Elevation While Body Size Increases - Turley - 2026 - Biotropica - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our paper "Gene ancestries reveal diverse microbial associations during eukaryogenesis.” is finally out in Nature. Eukaryogenesis was likely a gradual process shaped by multiple microbial partners and virus-mediated gene transfer, rather than a single binary symbiosis. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

"A dead mouse in a honey bee nest is like a dead whale shark in the lobby of an apartment building" So glad the reviewers, and Insect Socio, didn't cut that line! Awesome work, and surprising results, led by Erica Maul @ericamaul.bsky.social

How do social networks become adaptive? From self-organisation and phase transitions to cultural learning, social networks are shaped by feedback between individual interactions and collective dynamics. Check my new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The list of Ecology/Evolution/Marine Bio Labs recruiting grad students for Fall 2027 is live! PIs enter your position info here: forms.gle/MAGd4ohyPeoY... students (and PIs not recruiting) share the composite list: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Please share widely! 🧪

Excited to be presenting at #ASMicrobe for the first time! I’m making some mini linocut prints for the occasion—stop by my poster if you’d like to grab one and learn about my work investigating how interactions with Drosophila shape Pseudomonas populations: MECH-SUN-554, June 7, 12:30-1:30pm

I’m at ASM Microbe, and seeking postdoc positions after May 2027! Stop by my Rapid Fire talk (3 pm AEM session “Microbial Life on Land”) or my poster (AEM Friday poster #601) to hear some of what I’ve been working on in my PhD! @binningsingletons.com #phagesky

Almost time to kick-off this year's ASM Microbe, including some very cool sessions in the next few days in the AEM meeting ! If you're around and want to chat anything metagenomes, phages, viruses, and all that, let me know !

Now published! This was fun to write, thanks to @asanchezlab.bsky.social for the invitation. Feedback welcome as macroecology will be a core component of the forthcoming SOMA (Scales Of Microbial Architectonics) Laboratoire @ Genoscope enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Conference season is here, and I'll be at #ASMicrobe! Come check out some of my latest results on the honey bee queen microbiome. I'd also love to chat about other ongoing projects on social bee multi-kingdom microbiomes, potential collaborations, or opportunities to join the Caesar Lab at OU : )

Check out our new review with @mfarjo.bsky.social on what we know about the functional and evolutionary consequences of virus-virus interactions within viral populations, out now in @annualreviews.bsky.social: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... Hope you like it!

Going to #ASMicrobe this week? Swing by one of my *three* poster presentations! Or reach out if you'd like to chat experimental evolution, microbial communities, phages, host immunity, or growth curves! 🧵 1/4

Deadline to apply: 1 July 2026 www.antcourse.org

Hey all! Check out our new preprint exploring a surprising finding: that there is elemental consistency across life and across billions of years of protein evolution, despite their enormous functional and ecological diversity: arxiv.org/abs/2605.193... #proteinevolution #astrobiology #elementsoflife

Can’t resist... checking for potential VOCs in microbiome interactions, just one more experiment before moving to Oklahoma. Next ones will be at the Caesar Lab at OU :)

New research finds that nursing carpenter ants apply their venom to their brood to prevent fungal infections, highlighting peptides’ role in colony hygiene and social immunity. Learn more in this week’s issue of #ScienceAdvances: https://scim.ag/3PfGh24

Very excited to share our new paper out in Nature. Congrats to Xiaoqian (Annie) Yu and all the coauthors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new paper is out in @nature.com! By exploring the rich genetic diversity of Indigenous peoples across America, we show how large-scale genomic data reveal far more complex evolutionary history, shaped by multiple dispersals, long-term regional continuity, and adaptation to diverse environments.

The Bisson Lab at IU (bissonlab.com) is hiring makers/builders/engineers across all career stages to join our team in one of the most exciting and crazy projects I've set to work on. Candidates can email us: [email protected] More info in the thread [1/3]

Fantastic opportunity! Simons Graduate Fellowships (Ecology & Evolution) are open. Interested in joining the Caesar Lab at OU? Reach out, I’m happy to help with your application!

"Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are." It turns out, microbes follow the same rule! Very proud to share our lab's new paper in @natmicrobiol.nature.com showing that bacteria don't just respond to their environment, they respond to each other. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Applications now open for the UNIL Summer School on Modelling for Evolutionary Biology (31 Aug–5 Sep 2026, Lausanne)! For PhD & postdocs interested in formal approaches to evolutionary ecology (incl. social evo, life-history, species interactions). Scholarships available, Pls RP! shorturl.at/fo1GA

It was a great meeting where I was able to show new work on proteins built with extraterrestrial amino acids! Looking forward for next! "The symposium brought together researchers focused on diverse and varied ecosystems but united by their goal to discover and characterize microbial dark matter."

I am thrilled to share that this fall I’ll be joining the University of Oklahoma School of Biological Sciences (@ou.edu) as an Assistant Professor! The Caesar Lab will study the ecology and evolution of host-microbiome interactions in social bees (honey bees, stingless bees and more) 🦠🐝

Preprint: What good is modeling? Introducing biology students to theory - arxiv.org/abs/2604.13344 - how to teach and think about what modeling contributes to science. How does it fit into the scientific method? This is often misunderstood.

We (with @dornhaus.bsky.social) finally wrote up our class on how to teach modeling to biologists, which ends up being a non-trivial exercise in understanding the roles that theory plays in the scientific method. We hope others will use our class, or simply enjoy the manuscript!

How to measure microbiome health? Commentary proposes adaptive coherence: capacity of host-microbiome systems to sustain integrated function via reorganization. Reframes health as emergent & relational, w/measurements of adaptability/functional integrity www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...