Very cool, little doubt though about the word "most". I have a feeling that (predatory) feeding on invertabrates is quite common. E. g. here (10.1016/j.ijppaw.2020.09.003) they say "around one-half"

Let me use this as an opportunity to talk about Jordi et al's very cool paper, now out in PNAS 🧪: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... You can read our news and views here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, exciting microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more. #protistsonsky 1/2

Very excited to share this one! Our comprehensive structure, genetics and biophysics dissection of which flagellar dyneins and other proteins are needed for flagella to beat and drive cells swimming behaviours: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wound healing is a hallmark feature of all life, including single cells. In a new preprint, Ambika Nadkarni @biochembika.bsky.social investigates a new dimension in cellular wound healing: how cells recover AFTER the wound has been closed www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Oligonucleotide design meets big data: We present oligoN-design, a simple, reproducible and versatile open-source tool to design specific primers and probes directly from large environmental DNA datasets. 🔗 DOI: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 👉 github.com/MiguelMSandi...

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We have a great PhD project supported by SWBio Doctoral Training Partnership at @uniofbath.bsky.social for 2026! Come and apply cutting-edge sequencing approaches to tackle animal health in aquaculture! We'll be characterising protist parasites to learn more about their interactions and evolution 🐟

hah, I usually go for human eyelashes 🙃, but curious to try toothbrush bristles now!

The origins and molecular evolution of sperm https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.03.685759v1

✨X-ray crystallography reveals surprising twist in how proteins enter the unique photosynthetic organelles of Paulinella. The chromatophore targeting peptide (crTP) folds into a 3D structure, hinting that folded proteins cross peptidoglycan and inner membrane. (1/2) academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Absolutely stunning FIB-SEM, and a very cool story. Perfect timing for the endosymbiosis portion of my Evo Cell Bio course where we just covered a paper on Paulinella...

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗 beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

A new preprint from us using a single-cell genome pipeline to investigate diversity of uncultured Bodo spp. flagellates. We isolated 7 Bodo spp. cells from a single environmental sample and show that they represent 3 Bodo sp. each with a unique species of bacterial endosymbiont. #protistsonsky

Cell size matters: a unifying theory across the tree of life www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How to upgrade stolen organelles into permanent plastids: A comparative transcriptomic perspective | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #protistsonsky

Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News. Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports... This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵

🌊 Happy to share our recent study on phytoplankton dynamics! We found that communities can shift dramatically in just a few days - driven by grazers like Cladocera and environmental factors such as silica concentration and wind speed. t.co/PaL0QcofrV

quite scared one! If you give quiet time it will show its "ears" :)

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From MBoC: Wallace F. Marshall (UCSF) and team profile the giant ciliate Stentor pyriformis—symbiotic algae in microtubule baskets, symbiont-dependent phototaxis, and a standard genetic code. Paper: www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/... #CellBiology

mmmm, among other things I appreciate a fare representation of #centrohelids 😍

Again I am years behind: I have only recently noticed that critical information such as equal-contribution authorship is lost in important platforms such as PubMed, Google Scholar, ORCID... Fairness is critical to every one. Why nothing has been done to correct this? Something needs to be done!

Some little circus performers. #protistsonsky

If, unlike me you are a member Linnean Society and like me a fun of #Protistsonsky, consider nominating two amazing amateur protist naturalists: Ferry Siemensma (arcella.nl) and Eckhard Voelcker (penard.de), their contribution is outstanding!

Excited to share our third heterotrophic #Paulinella culture from Haida Gwaii, Canada! :) #ProtistsOnSky

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

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

In another exciting development our new preprint is online: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... This is the work of my brilliant graduate student Katerina Kourkoulou in collaboration with Maggie Liu and Arnold Mathijssen. Here is a video of the subject of our study:

Our 2nd heterotrophic #Paulinella culture! Really proud of this one. After days at the microscope picking cells, I finally got it growing happily :) #protistsonsky

Environment-dependent mutualism–parasitism transitions in the incipient symbiosis between Tetrahymena utriculariae and Micractinium tetrahymenae From Mostafa et al

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social

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

Check out our new paper on adopting a trait-based framework for protist diversity! We make the case for a unified protist trait database, how to build it, and how it could transform research on protist ecology and evolution. #protistsonsky

How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social

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

New paper is out! We have studied the cute tiny Discocelia plataet sp. n. to obtain the first molecular data of the order Discocelida and clarify its cell structure. All this for a better understanding of the evolution of Cercozoa. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

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Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...

New lab pre-print up! "Twelve species of human parasites make up half the literature on microbial eukaryotes" doi.org/10.1101/2025... We (led by UG Joanna Lepper and with @hbrappap.bsky.social) quantified all mentions of protist species in the scientific literature 🧵 #protistsonsky #microsky

🚨 Imagine a bacterium that refuses to follow the textbook: It grows as tangled filaments, divides unevenly, reshapes its own membranes… and even builds grappling hooks. Meet Litorilinea aerophila — and here’s why it blew our minds.

With a combination of FIB-SEM, super-resolution & expansion #microscopy, Araujo Alves, Bastin et al @bastinlab.bsky.social @pasteur.fr reveal how IFT trains are progressively restricted to a limited number of #microtubule doublets in the flagellum of T. brucei. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Cilia

The first paper from my PhD is out now! doi.org/10.1111/jeu.... We describe a new photosynthetic #Paulinella species from a brackish beach in British Columbia 🇨🇦 Big thanks to the co-authors Maia Palka and @alive-in-the-ocean.bsky.social, and my supervisor @fburki.bsky.social #protistsonsky

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Genomes of nitrogen-fixing eukaryotes reveal an alternate path for organellogenesis #protistsonsky

Impressive, and I am sure amazing genomics, but it feels as some zoology carelessness. "Microscopic phyla"-??? Have you heard about acanthocephalans? giant thorny-headed worm starts crying 😭 Can anyone clarify which organ systems (!) were reinvented (!!!)? Please correct me if I missed anything.

Check out our recent publication on breviate protists and their microbial communities. In this study, led by PhD student Karla and postdoc Julie, we found that breviate growth under anoxia might be dependent on the metabolic capabilities of the prokaryotes they live with. doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Distinct Patterns of Co-Evolution Among Protist Symbionts of Neoisoptera Termites #termites #protists @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/17...

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....