👏🏾 A big shout out to @spun.earth and the Global Initiative of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment for sponsoring 9 students to attend our conference! Students who applied for our travel grants, check your email inbox. @thegsbi.bsky.social @lindolab.bsky.social @carlosbarreto.bsky.social

Im so happy to have ‘older’ (just in age, younger in spirit) collaborators/mentors on the different topics I work. They care about the right, deep stuff! Nancy Collins Johnson, David Sloan Wilson, Roberto Godoy, Jacob Weiner, Elisabeth A. Lloyd, & Michel J. Wade.

Transposable elements are vectors of recurrent transgenerational epigenetic inheritance | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Got to meet in person 2 academic heroes: Elisabeth A. Lloyd (I wrote a book review on her & Javi Suarez recent ‘Units of Selection’, for #Evolution), & Mike Wade, recent co-author (‘Bring back the phenotype’, for @newphyt.bsky.social), & author of the 1st multilevel selection empirical paper (1976)

Its been 17 years since my dad was killed in Cauca, Colombia, for his farmer union leadership, fighting for land rights for the farmers who actually work the land. We are still waiting for answers & justice!

Im glad our preprint entitled “Global North-South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers” already has some few citations. We have an updated version at #ZENODO: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... #GlobalSouth #Science #academia #OpenAccess #colonization

🎉 It was great to interview Bea Bock on her @CommsBio paper: “Evidence for common fungal networks among plants formed by a Dark Septate Endophyte in Sorghum bicolor”, for the SAMRN @YouTube channel & @mycorrhizaims.bsky.social Newsletter: #Fungi @mrillig.bsky.social #CFN youtu.be/2fljqU3uXtw?...

This Fungal Ecology ed. cites my 🇪🇸 paper entitled “Filosofía Fungi” written with #JavierSuárez. There we used Okasha (2024) agency clasif. to argue that there should not be problem on saying Fungi are minimal & intelligent agents. They are not intentional. Are they rational agents? Open question!

Im writing a book chapter on multilevel Selection on the microbiome. All these articles had sucess on artificial community selection towards a desired community phenotype. It is quite something!

It feels quite great when your academic hero, David Sloan Wilson, who you read since 2009 (I was 18 then), includes you in one of his slides. My first multilevel selection paper is from 2015, the first mycorrhizal one from 2016. And just last year and this year we are joining both!

After 16 reading him, finally got to meet David Sloan Wilson. David has been foundational on multilevel selection (MLS) since 1975, collaborating with E.O. Wilson, Nobel laurate Elinor Ostrom, etc. That happened with Nancy Collins Johnson is the 🍒 in the 🍰 Mycorrhiza + MLS

A well conducted study and well balanced discussion of CMNs … Mycorrhizal Network and Symbiotic N-Fixer Jointly Enhance the Interplant Nitrogen Sharing onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Many thanks for the invite!

New semester, new lecture series 🎉Starting next month, we welcome amazing scholars to give online talks in the history and philosophy of life sciences. Find all dates and registration links here: rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... We look forward to seeing you there 🤗 #PhilSci #HistSci #HPBio

🍄Working in fungal conservation? Call for papers for our upcoming special issue in Fungal Ecology 'Fungal conservation: from knowledge to actions' ! Deadline 31 January 2026 www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

If you adopt a phenotypic view of evolution (as I did on this @newphyt.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1111/nph....) there is room for many evolutionary factors often ignored. Evolution should be defined as “Change in the distribution of phenotypes due to the gain or loss of individuals”.

These are the conclusions of my seminar “Abundant empirical evidence of multilevel selection revealed by a bibliometric review”, based on the @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social #preprint of the same title. Presenting it now at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff. doi.org/10.32942/X25...

This paper was so important and it took so much effort to get it out there, that I print it. Is the first time I print something that I have written. And took a photo, of course.

Final PDF of Functional Team Selection, written with #NancyCollinsJohnson published in @isme-microbes.bsky.social Journal: - If there is: selective force, host constitution, & enough microbial diversity/time, a + PSF is likely - Plant #holobiont is a complex adaptive system doi.org/10.1093/isme...

It was great to interview Bea Bock on her @CommsBio paper: “Evidence for common fungal networks among plants formed by a Dark Septate Endophyte in Sorghum bicolor”, for the @mycorrhiza_ims @YouTube channel & @mycorrhiza_ims Newsletter @mrillig.bsky.social youtu.be/2fljqU3uXtw?...

This is the second seminar that Ill give while at my research stay at #NAU in Flagstaff (the other one is mycorrhizal, of course). This @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social #preprint is the base for this seminar: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Elizabeth Randolph (in the middle) is a Master student that Nancy Johnson and I co-supervise. She just won a Fullbright scolarship to travel for 8 months to my lab, in southern Chile, to investigate Alerces microbiome and science outreach! Congrats! news.nau.edu/2025-fulbrig...

Call for symposia at @ICOM2026 is open until 15 October. The 13 conference of @mycorrhiza_ims #Mycorrhiza will take place in Cairns, Australia, 12-17 July 2026! @southmycorrhiza @karst_justine @fmartin1954 @1pantunes #soil #fungi icom2026.org/symposia/

One single tree can host up to 1 trillion bacteria on its wood. The hyphosphere microbiome seems to be fundamental for mycorrhizal functioning. I see things like this and wonder, how some colleagues still doubt about #Holobionts being units of selection? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Had a blast presenting our @isme-microbes.bsky.social Journal paper “Functional Team Selection” at the 4th Latin Am. conference on Microbial Ecology, as invited speaker. Thanks to #ismelat_2025 for the invite to Mérida. Was here, 6 years ago during #ICOM we started to develop this idea! #Holobiont

For over 60 years biologists have debated whether natural selection operates beyond (or below) organisms/genes. After checking 2950 WoS papers, we find 280 provide evidence of mulilevel selection in the lab & nature. From nuclei, clones, demes, to microbiomes & communities!

New #preprint in @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social: “Abundant empirical evidence of multilevel selection [MLS] revealed by a bibliometric review”. After checking 2950 papers, we conclude 180 offer empirical evidence of MLS in lab, 100 in situ. MLS is important in #Evolution! doi.org/10.32942/X25...

The content of my talk “Fungal agency” at the #ISHPSSB Porto 2025 meeting. Very happy to be on this kind of conference for the first time!

Writing this, I get a new appreciation on how smart Maturana and Varela were.

Paper just published in #Symbiosis: Parise AG, Marín C, Tamagnini F, Tibbett M, Pickles BJ. 2025. How mycorrhizal fungi could extend plant cognitive processes. Symbiosis. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/s131... an almost-Chilean it feels great to cite Maturana & Varela in a mycorrhizal paper

After 6 years of work (since ICOM Mérida 2019) with #NancyCollinsJohnson our “Functional team selection as a framework for local adaptation in plants and their belowground microbiomes” is out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social Journal! doi.org/10.1093/isme... #Mycorrhiza #Holobiont #MultilevelSelection

JUST ACCEPTED: Johnson, N.C., Marín, C. 2025. Functional team selection as a framework for local adaptation in plants and their belowground microbiomes. ISME J. Working with Nancy since Mérida 2019 on it! Here the preprint (but it changed a lot since): doi.org/10.32942/X27...

In Chile we have 803 ocurrences of 71 Glomeromycota species. Marín C, Turbay Villarroel A, Riquelme C, Goto B T (2025). Lista sistemática de registros y especies de Glomeromycota en Chile. Version 1.0. South American Mycorrhizal Research Network. Occurrence dataset. doi.org/10.15468/b99...

New paper out in: “Bring back the phenotype”. Sewall Wright was right all along. After a century, it is time to catch up! Nice writing with Mike Wade from Indiana University, who has provided empirical evidence of group selection since 1976! doi.org/10.1111/nph.... @newphyt.bsky.social

Paper just accepted in #NewPhytologist: Marín C, Wade MJ. Bring back the phenotype. Here we join recent & not-so-recent criticisms towards a gene-centric view of evolution. In 1976 Mike Wade did the first empirical evidence study of group selection in the lab. Nice to write with him!

Is impossible not to mix my scientist/farmer/war victim backgrounds. This is my first paper, BSc thesis directed by Jacob Weiner from 🇩🇰 The experiment was done in 🇨🇴 plots previously sown by my dad, 50 m away from where he was killed by paramilitars dx.doi.org/10.1111/wre....

Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land” in the occupied West Bank on Monday, and he was then detained by the Israeli military, activists on the scene said.

Comedian Bo Burham said: “Social media is just the market’s answer to a generation that demanded to perform, so the market said “Here, perform everything, to each other, all the time for no other reason””. 2025 is that in steroids.

In Academia we seem to agree that creativity comes from the interaction of many different expertises/study systems. This is were breakthroughs usually come from. However Job offers are like: Molecular (RNA) biologist with experience on (crop) plant-microbes in the Northeast US.

Very honored to be elected Vice-Chair of the International Network of Soil Biodiversity of FAO, on Working Group 1: measurement, assessment, and monitoring of soil biodiversity. This will be a very nice challenge and I hope to continue the great work by George Brown & Carlos Guerra!

#Preprint Alert! Just published in #Zenodo & lead by #RachelTurba with a great team here we discuss “Global North-South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers”. From the origins of modern science to current publis. Systems! doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Im very honored by this invite. Ill be one of 3 keynote speakers at the 4th Global Soil Biodiversity Conference in Canada, April 2026! globalsoilbiodiversity2026.org

Through my Fondecyt Regular Project, Nancy Collins Johnson from Northern Arizona University is visiting my lab in Valdivia, Chile, for the next couple of weeks. Just superb to have Nancy here!

Very thankful with my BSc thesis students from another University, Jenny & Constanza, for organizing this seminar with Nancy Johnson and me. Here in Valdivia. 7 January 2025! Very nice when young students take these iniciatives!

Very thankful with my BSc thesis students from another University, Jenny & Constanza, for organizing this seminar with Nancy Johnson and me. Here in Valdivia. 7 January 2025! Very nice when young students take these iniciatives!

Aloe there 👋🏽 Here is a starter pack with Black researchers, practitioners & orgs working with plants in the broadest sense (botany, forestry, plant ecology, crop science, herbaria, botanic gardens) Hoping this will help set seed for a nurturing community! Reply 🔽 to be added go.bsky.app/7Gn2NCb

Mycorrhizal art (old pots) inspired in the award-winning AMF photos by Vasilis Kokkoris. Painted by my mom, Sara.

Very nice paper by Yan Li, @manudelbaq.bsky.social and colleagues. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Tengo varias publicaciones en las que entre todos los autores, soy el único no-blanco, y el que termina haciendo la inmensa mayoría de análisis y escritura. O en otros casos, junto al otro/a autor no-blanco. El privilegio blanco en la academia es tan marcado, que el resto no cae en cuenta.

For the YouTube channel of the South American Mycorrhizal Res. Network I interviewed André Geremia Parise on his “Extended plant cognition” framework. Which is the evidence? Volatile organic compounds, mycorrhizas, root exudates, and root microbiome. Check it below ⬇️ youtu.be/A47I0lugJpg?...