Cyclospora 👀 #protistsonsky #apicomplexans

Plastid endosymbiosis without gene transfer - dinoflagellates can do it #ProtistsOnSky #Kareniaceae #plastids

Most people have never heard of #apusomonads. Yet these tiny protists occupy an important position in the eukaryotic tree of life. And we know so little about them! We're looking for a Master's student to help uncover their hidden diversity. #ProtistsOnSky 🧵 @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @prbb.org

Cool video about the nitroplast that’s also a testament to why basic science is important! youtu.be/g9B3gBhcwqM?...

What happens to labile carbon when it reaches the Arctic seafloor? In our new paper led by Juan Carlos Trejos-Espeleta, we show how marine fungi efficiently assimilate DOC & promote C retention in Arctic fjord sediments Nice 🧵 from @ggomezsaez.bsky.social 👇 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

🎉 Excited to share that Elisabeth Hehenberger and I have been awarded a 🇵🇱🇨🇿 NCN–GAČR grant! We'll explore the diversity, ecology, and interactions of Perkinsea, a fascinating and largely overlooked group of parasitic #protists in #freshwaters. Looking forward to this exciting collaboration!

Viruses play a major role in the functioning of ecosystems. They profoundly influence the dynamics of microbial communities, the flow of matter & global biogeochemical cycles. phys.org/news/2026-06... via @sciencex.bsky.social #virology #genomics #ecology #science #SciChat

How did octopuses evolve novel traits? Rishav Mitra, Richard Han, Trey Scott, et al serendipitously discover a unique ribosome adaptation that increases the accuracy of protein synthesis and evolved alongside their elaborate nervous systems vs deep sea relatives. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Not everyday a friend is able to define a new organelle!!! If you like membrane compartimentalization and are interested in how cells responde to stress in membrane tension, check this out!👇👇 Congrats to Elda and co!! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

In September we will have the pleasure of hosting Karla and @fmikus.bsky.social from the labs of @dudinlab.bsky.social and @gautamdey.bsky.social. If you are around Granada please join us for their talk! They will present ExÂME, an incredible initiative to build a 3D atlas of protists diversity!

Our News & Views article “Body-plan organizer in comb jellies hints at animal ancestry” now published in @nature.com 🎉 We discuss fascinating work revealing organizer activity in comb jellies & the evolution of animal development. rdcu.be/fsLWq @ruthstyfhals.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

#Archaea Gene duplications, rather than horizontal gene transfers from bacteria, seem to be the primary drivers behind the increased genome sizes in Asgard archaea #evolution #microbes @tonigabaldon.bsky.social @microbiobits.bsky.social

New preprint: We studied the population dynamics of Arctic #phytoplankton and #mycoplankton and found evidence for chytrid-mediated diatom bloom termination. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Congrats @paulinethome.bsky.social #protists #protistsonsky #algae #diatoms #chytrids

It is always alarming to read about the effects of marine heatwaves 💔 In 2025, toxin-producing dinoflagellate blooms caused mass mortality across marine organisms, linked to a new Karenia species, K. cristata (not even known to bloom in Australia before!) rdcu.be/fsKE4

"I hope that this parasite will ‘stick’ to some of you as well, so that you too can admire the heart-shaped, dividing Giardia trophozoites through your microscopes." 🫶 #protistsonsky rdcu.be/fsBia

A single-cell atlas of Toxoplasma sexual development in the feline intestinal tract www.nature.com/articles/s41... #protists #singlecell

Discovery of an adhesion GPCR regulating mating in choanoflagellates, by Alain Garcia de las Bayonas & Nicole King. Absolutely stunning work - choano cell biology is going next level www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our group is moving from @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social to the maritime city of Kiel! ⛵️🩵 I will lead the Department of Marine Plant Development and Physiology @uni-kiel.de 🌱🪸🌊 Look out for opportunities to join us in this exciting & growing hub for Plant, Marine & Evolutionary Biology in North Germany 🇩🇪

My department @eth-dbiol.bsky.social at ETH Zurich is hiring for a tenured professor in mol cell bio and biochemistry (associate/full). The position is within the Institute of Biochemistry (www.bc.biol.ethz.ch) and it is fairly open within their scope of research. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

@varshamathur.bsky.social received the Gertrud Pleskot Award from the Faculty of Life Sciences: neurodevbio.univie.ac.at/news-events/...

Conservation and evolution of the ribosome across the photosynthetic lineage🦠🍓''gain and loss of ribosomal proteins, rRNA modifications and hibernation factors upon endosymbiosis'' www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share our new preprint led by Fred and me in collaboration with the archaeal community! We found that the molecular foundation of histone-based chromatin has pre-eukaryotic roots in Asgard archaea. (1/4) #ArchaeaSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share that my postdoc work is now out @cp-cell.bsky.social! A collaborative work with co-lead author Catherine Henderson and others in the lab of @pcleves.bsky.social A deep look into how algae form symbiosis with corals and anemones. 🧵 (1/7) www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

💡June Recap: A thread celebrating the achievements of our members this month! 🧵 We are proud to spotlight the incredible work happening across our community:

Think you know aquatic plants? 7 facts that might surprise you 👇🌊 Read more: shorturl.at/0bCm1 As highlighted in @currentbiology.bsky.social, while at @ox.ac.uk @biology.ox.ac.uk

🎖️Farooq Azam, a marine microbiologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Oceanography & @ucsandiego.bsky.social, has earned the prestigious 2026 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences! He was recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries on the microbial loop. ⤵️ https://bit.ly/4y5lcZU

Annual killifish continue to surprise us: they make neutrophils before almost every other cell type, even before gastrulation. Neutrophils usually arise from the lateral plate mesoderm (forming in cyan), but in killifish they are already patrolling around the embryo in gold. tinyurl.com/killiphil

Mobile genetic elements shape microbial diversity and functions in thawing permafrost soils www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I had a ton of fun the other day talking with @nonresidentdesi.bsky.social and @scifri.bsky.social 's Flora Lichtman and Rasha Aridi about murderous microbes and the things that we are trying to learn from them. Happy for the opportunity to bring some new awareness to the world of protists!

Next month, a research vessel shaped like a bowler hat or an alien spaceship, depending on who you ask, is scheduled to depart from France for the Arctic. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Global view of the role of apicomplexans and other parasitic protists in soils #parasites #protists #diversity www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

@zjmaggiexu.bsky.social's story on suctorian trap structure adaptation is now online in @currentbiology.bsky.social , with new evolutionary analyses and modeling! This fall, Maggie will keep exploring predatory protists as a PD in @nbellono.bsky.social group; keep an eye out for her she's amazing!

Do you work with scRNAseq data in non-model organisms that have less-than-stellar gene annotations? ✨ 🧬 You might be interested in GeneExt, a nifty little tool by @zolotarg.bsky.social in @arnausebe.bsky.social's lab, published in #Bioinformatics earlier this year. #singlecell #transcriptomics

Big paper from @hejnol.bsky.social lab. Title says it all. Congrats, Stanislav Kremnyov and the team. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Embryonic ‘organizer cells’ can tell embryos of various phyla what kind of body to build go.nature.com/4vnO1ig

Wow, another independent transition to parasitism + loss of photosynthesis/convergent plastid reduction in the chrompodellids! So cool @protistwtmostest.bsky.social!

The CNRS has opened a Junior Professor Chair (CPJ) call in Parasitology, and the Microbiologie Fondamentale et Pathogénicité (MFP, Bordeaux) laboratory is among the potential host institutions. More information: www.insb.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/... #Parasitology #Protozoology #ResearchJobs #CNRS

#Fungi are critical biological #carbon storage reservoirs in soil, but what about marine ecosystems? This study by Juan Carlos Trejos-Espeleta, William Orsi &co shows that marine fungi store carbon in arctic fjord sediment, although #climate warming brings rapid change🧪#AcademicSky plos.io/4eeXaDP

Published today alongside Kew's State of the World's Plants & Fungi report, 'Harnessing the benefits of specimen digitisation', explores how digitised specimens are changing how we study plants and fungi. Antonelli, et al. introduce the Collection: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Big opportunities for researchers 🌍 We are investing nearly €400 million to help researchers share their work and collaborate with the best scientific teams across the EU. The 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships are now open. More: link.europa.eu/PNxpxw

How ancient are the building blocks of animal sensory systems? Key components of animal sensory systems evolved before animals. We find that choanoflagellates possess diverse & spatially segregated TRP channels, pointing to ancient origins of sensory specialization. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Expansion microscopy is revolutionary but application to actin cytoskeleton has been challenging. Not anymore....we combine IntAct + U-ExM to get an unprecedented 3D nanoscale view of actin isoforms in expanded cells. Read the full revised paper here: plos.io/4vansgr

1/9 For years, debates about microbial biogeography have sometimes been framed as a choice. Either microorganisms are everywhere. Or geography matters. But what if that is a false choice? @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social @prbb.org @csic.es #protistsOnSKy

Here is some weekend reading for you 👉 www.cell.com/current-biol... Our special green issue, chokeful of reviews and short-format introductory pieces on plant #evolution! 🌱🌿🌵🍃 #Plants

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...

Long-term aggregation induced by bacteria in the filasteran Ministeria, with increased mating frequency inside aggregates. Truly remarkable observations by JP Gerdt, @multicellgenome.bsky.social and team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

10/10 Perhaps aggregation is not an evolutionary dead end after all! Perhaps it was one of the evolutionary experiments from which animal multicellularity emerged. Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @icreacommunity.bsky.social #AnimalOrigins #Evolution #Multicellularity

"Humbled to receive this recognition. This belongs as much to my team, my family, & to my home, Palestine: the people, the place, the joyful stubbornness to enjoy life." Cheers buddy @gautamdey.bsky.social Thx to my mentors @sophiemartinlab.bsky.social, @paveltomancak.bsky.social, & Pierre Gönczy.

Excellent opportunity here: a 5 year senior research fellowship in Life Sciences (broadly defined) at All Souls College Oxford. Many opportunities to work with the diverse & inclusive community here in @biology.ox.ac.uk here in the brand new Life & Mind Buiilding www.asc.ox.ac.uk/post-doctora...

Genes for genetic painting in flowers now available on Addgene!: addgene.org/browse/artic...