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

What you're looking at is a brand new protist species! 🤯🔬 Isn't it beautiful? This image is just a glimpse of what's to come. We can't wait to share our full findings soon, in partnership with Guifré @beaplab.bsky.social @luisjagago.bsky.social. Stay tuned! #NewSpecies #protistsonSky #diversity

New #ISEPpapers! The fluid dynamics and functional diversity of the flagella of free-living flagellates orbit.dtu.dk/en/publicati... #Protists #Microbes #FluidDynamics #Biophysics

For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began go.nature.com/3JyRV4S

New cool cercozoan heterotrophic flagellates with amazing UExM images just out! Indeed Discocelia has to be at least top 5 cutest protists! #protistsonsky

We have a postdoc opening for a protistologist with biophysics inclinations to join our @hfspo.bsky.social project! (focus will be on characterising the morphology, ultrastructure and behaviour of excavates) #protistsonsky Apply by Sept 17th (RTs appreciated!) jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

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....

Check out our new preprint all about Pirsonia, a tiny killer of bloom-forming Coscinodiscus diatoms! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #protistsonsky #marinemicrobes 🌊🔬

Happy to have contributed to this great article: #Protist genomics: key to understanding eukaryotic evolution. Congrats Alexandra Schoenle et al. #ProtistsOnSky authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

😻 HUGE NEWS! One of the "Magnificent 8" – key missing lineages for understanding animal origins – is ALIVE in our lab! Watch the video! Massive thanks to @luisjagago.bsky.social (isolation wizard!) & @beaplab.bsky.social @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @prbb.org @csic.es @erc.europa.eu #protistsonSky

Why do some planktonic protists develop a gelatinous matrix? We suggest that this original adaptation is a strategy to cope with ocean oligotrophy: doi.org/10.1111/1462... Led by @n-llopis-m.bsky.social, and thanks to all co-authors, I'm very happy to finally see it out! #protistsonsky

This is so cool!!

First study from the lab is out! We describe ApuRs, a new family of microbial rhodopsins unique from apusomonads. ApuRs represent the first anion-conducting rhodopsin channels that can be controlled by UV light, offering potential as new optogenetic tools. #protistsonsky doi.org/10.1101/2025... 👇

Re-posts appreciated! We have an open PhD position w/ Prof Harold Auradou on #microswimmers/#protists in complex media! Students get to spend at least 12 months in Paris, and will receive their PhD from both Exeter and Paris-Saclay! Apply by 31st Mar. More details: adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...

Check out our dispatch on apicomplexans that infect corals! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... These parasite-like partners have lost photosynthesis but retained chlorophyll... are they friend or foe? @currentbiology.bsky.social #protistsonsky #symbiosky #microsky #coralreefs

Excited to announce the 10th "Choanoflagellates & Friends Workshop" over May 20-22 in our own Institut Pasteur in Paris: 2025choanocon.wordpress.com Registrations open til March 15, abstract til March 5. Pre-conference event for students/postdocs on 19/05. Plenty of slots for selected talks/posters!

Characterization of Allobodo yubaba sp. nov. and Novijibodo darinka gen. et sp. nov., cultivable free-living species of the phylogenetically enigmatic kinetoplastid taxon Allobodonidae Julia A. Packer et al. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #protistsonsky

Discover the wonders of 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘴 🤩 This parasitic protist undergoes rapid #CellDivision : from a single sporangium to hundreds of motile zoospores. A stunning glimpse into the speed and precision of microbial life! 🌊🔬 Stay tuned for more 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘴 insights! #CellBiology #ProtistsOnSky

Thrilled to see #choanoflagellates on the cover of Science Advances🤩. Our latest work "Electrical signaling and coordinated behavior in the closest relative of animals" out now. Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 👏 @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

Delighted to share our new preprint on the cell biology and genome of Stentor pyriformis, a giant ciliate that maintains Chlorella endosymbionts in surface-associated microtubule baskets. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🍾Our small #UExM adventure is only starting! #ProtistsOnSky We are happy to announce that the Moore Foundation will be funding our efforts in creating an Expansion Microscopy atlas of #Microbial #Eukaryotes with @gautamdey.bsky.social @UNIGE @embl.org LINK: www.unige.ch/sciences/chi... 1/4

There is some weird stuff in the water- from Eugen Daday 1903: "Mkroskopische Süßwassertiere aus Kleinasien" (Microscopic freshwater animals from Asia Minor)

From the other place - I don’t think ISOP is on Bsky yet protistologists.org/upcoming-pro... #ProtistsOnSky in 2025

We sequenced a bunch of understudied flagellates including apusomonads, ancyromonads and one Meteora strain. Here is our version of the eukaryotic tree including them👇 #ProtistsOnSky

Honored and excited to receive an #ERCCoG grant. Big thanks to my colleagues, former mentors and, most importantly, my amazing lab members. Together, we will be exploring cell type evolution across timescales, from population variation (with @xgrau.bsky.social) to regulatory sequences across phyla.

The tiny heterotrophic cryptophyte palpitomonas with its small cell body, relatively large nucleus (shown with a green nuclear stain) and its strangely extra long pair of flagella. #protistaday #protistsonsky

Radiolaria are known for their elaborate and gorgeous skeletons, found all over our oceans. But what if I tell you that half of their diversity might be naked!? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fully Funded PhD Opportunity in Evolutionary Biology at the U of Rhode Island. Join us to explore the origin and early evolution of eukaryotes using cutting-edge comparative (meta)genomics and molecular evolution approaches. Applications are due December 15th. Contact me ASAP at [email protected]

Very excited to share that, come January, I will be joining the faculty at @uniofbath.bsky.social as a Lecturer/Assistant Professor! We’ll be studying all things microbiomes, harmful and beneficial host-microbe interactions, and protist diversity and evolution! www.theholtlab.com for updates! 😀

Understanding the origin of eukaryotic cells is one of the biggest puzzles in biology 🧩 As genomic data expand, painting a clear picture of LECA requires analytical resources and a commitment to data sharing. This paper led by T. R. emphasizes a community-driven approach to tackle this complexity.

Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

@jamesweiss.bsky.social @jamesweiss.bsky.social we would very much like to see your marvelous clip of Leptophrys here again (you had it on 𝕏 in 2020) #ProtistsOnSky

Protists from "Dictionnaire Pittoresque d'Histoire Naturelle et des Phénomènes de la Nature" (1836 vol 4) under Infusoires. We've made some progress, ahh but the old artwork.... #protistsonsky

It’s lunch time! 😋 Here we can see a filament of Planktothrix and many #chytrid zoospores trying to infect it... while some others have already succeeded 😬 #postdoclife

Our latest team effort on the characterization of ancyromonads diversity. Why should we care? 🧵 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.29.538795v1

Missing microbial eukaryotes and misleading meta-omic conclusions #protists #protistsonsky

Excited to see the choanoflagellate Barroeca monosierra on the cover of #mbiojournal 🤩. Our work shows that this large colonial choanoflagellate from Mono Lake harbors live bacteria. Beautiful picture by Kayley Hake. #choanoflagellates #multicellularity #evolution journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

New preprint! #UExM for >200 microbial eukaryotes, all 1670 volumes available via FIJI/Mobie! Thank you to everyone that made it possible especially Armando and @hiralshah.bsky.social , @gautamdey.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social, and @dudinlab.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/PlanExM1

Just sooooo smitten with all the detail we can see in these expanded #Mesodinium cells (shown here alongside their prey). Thank you @Dey_Gautam for the invitation to be here @embl, and @F_Mikus for spending hours teaching me these past two weeks. #figaday 3.006/n #year3

Honey, wake up. A new phylogeny of ochrophytes just dropped and the eustigs are still a problem. It turns out you can lose a secondary plastid of red algal origin! Great collaboration with colleagues in the Czech Republic, Australia and the US. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...