Happy to announce a new Frontiers in Water publication on Lake O cyanoHABs, wrapping up our first project characterizing microbial interactions: lopez-lab.net/2025/10/15/1...

Chromosomal level sponge Diacarnus erythraeanus whole genome published. Congrats to Laura Steindler and the ASG Photosymbiosis hub. lopez-lab.net/2025/08/30/c...

This surprisingly relaxing footage is from SIX MILES under the ocean – and it’s the deepest ecosystem yet discovered

Check out our new community funding proposal "Adopt an Invertebrate Genome with GIGA". The focus is to help scientists get funds for sequencing invertebrate genomes through crowdsourcing. Details here if you are interested : www.gigacos.org/index.php/20... #genome #omics #genomics #invertebrate

The Aquatic Symbiosis Genome (ASG) Project has now published the first chromosomal-level, whole nuclear genome of the giant barrel sponge, Xestospongia muta, and its accompanying microbial cohort. wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/10-...

New publication from our lab. Please tell your local eateries about biodegradable PHA plastic and Phade straws which will be much better for the environment. lopez-lab.net/2025/05/29/n...

Be kind to a coral near or far away (by lowering our carbon foootprints) www.earth.com/news/world-r...

This is an absolute disaster. If we don't stop this, they will turn NSF into a pawn of the Trump administration. There will be no research on climate, biodiversity, or anything that isn't eugenics or AI or how to more efficiently destroy the planet for profit. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Timeline cleanse: do you want to see one of the best fossil animations I have EVER seen? @kiabugboy.bsky.social you are literally a master of the form. BBC or Discovery (whoever pays more) should hire you immediately 🧪🦑⚒️

Claims by the Trump administration that marine protected areas are a heavy-handed restriction on the U.S. fishing industry do not hold water. Science shows these refuges for sea life help local economies and allow fish populations to thrive By @whysharksmatter.bsky.social

We had a great time at the 2025 meeting of the FL Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (FLASM) at Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft Myers this weekend. One my students was awarded best grad student poster. #FLASM and lopez-lab.net/2025/03/30/m...?

Save the date: Our next GIGA Conference takes place July 5-10, 2026 in the Philippines. More info coming soon, we hope you can join us!

We had a decent stand up for science event in S Florida. Thanks for showing up and all the friendly honks!!

Sponges and better climate change calibration www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Apparently it is World Seagrass Day A good excuse to remind about this paper from 2024 about how their global distribution and diversity may shift due to climate change Open access link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #WorldSeagrassDay2025 #WorldSeagassDay #SeagrassDay

Getting dangerously close to censorship in science - www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Going down the tubes for no good reasons. stevensalzberg.substack.com/p/the-pointl...

I finished my dissertation in the MD/DC area, and enjoyed going to the capital Mall on special events. I was able to capture the moment serendipitously during a parade on Constitution Ave. I think it sums up our democracy; the words behind the people say "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty"

Save your data and knowledge www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I have shown this video routinely to my microbiology classes the past few years. It allows me to enhance Covid-19 lessons. It illustrates some of the constructive things that the CDC and USAID have done in the past, but which we are now actively dismantling. m.youtube.com/watch?v=ukr0...

High flying immunity? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I had a great time participating in the last third of the Conservation Genomics 2025 course (conservationgenetics.org/congen2025/) held at the Cheetah Conservation Center in Otjiwarongo, Namibia. Thanks to Laurie Marker and CCF for hosting. I’m also happy to help the board plan the next workshop.

This is Gnathophyllum americanum - otherwise known to divers as the Bumblebee Shrimp. Found across the Indo-Pacific, it is quite a small little invert at around 2.5cm maximum size. #🦑 #🦐 #UnderwaterPhotography

Surprising coral resilience after the 2023 marine heatwave in the Fl Keys. www.frontiersin.org/journals/mar...

One more shout out to Lauren Krausfeldt for her excellent -omics work on the Lake O ecosystem. Thanks also to all cyanoHAB collaborators (NSU, FGCU, USGS, SFWMD) from 2019 to now for wrapping up the intense 3 year project into some nice bundles. lopez-lab.net/2024/12/26/m...

Happy Holidays!! I like posting Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) photos this time of year because they have so much phenotypic diversity, and sometimes ornamentation too, though I do have to rely on the public domain. Someone should sequence the nuclear genome.

Meet the Malayan tapir, the herbivore with a taste for variety! From fruits and leaves to bark and grasses, this gentle giant loves to graze in Southeast Asia’s jungles. Its genome was sequenced by both Zoonomia Project and Vertebrate Genome Project, unveiling the secrets of this unique creature.

Another Bathysaurus? #SchmidtOcean dive 776 #IntoSouthernOcean #MarineLife

Annual Heredity prize for the Best Student Paper 2024 Kate Rick from the University of Western Australia has won this year's competition. Congratulations Kate 🎉 @gensocuk.bsky.social

Very cool work. doi.org/10.1186/s407...

Latest update on the Earth BioGenome Project. The EBP is slightly behind schedule, but still moving forward. GIGA members can contribute their high quality reference genomes through our BioProject - PRJNA649812. www.science.org/content/arti...; #earthbiogenomeproject

@invertebrates.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/tuex...

Several different kinds of urchins, coral, & Anthomastus. The tall ones are Dermechinus horridus. SchmidtOcean dive 764 #ChileMargin2024 #MarineLife

"Some plastics are worse than others and have a unique impact in various parts of the world." Reporting from Korea @emmaanne.bsky.social dives into the everyday objects that lie at the heart of negotiations for the global plastics treaty www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Latest update on the Earth BioGenome Project. The EBP is slightly behind schedule, but still moving forward. GIGA members can contribute their high quality reference genomes through our BioProject - PRJNA649812. www.science.org/content/arti...; #earthbiogenomeproject

We are thrilled to announced the publication of chromosome level genome assemblies and genetic maps for the Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and Acropora cervicornis. bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

So today’s #Nudivember is Miamira alleni which is a somewhat strange looking species that resembles soft coral. “Discovered” by Jerry Allen in 1993 whilst it attempted to photobomb his shots of a Mandarin Fish in the Philippines. #Nudibranch #MarineLife #Inverts

Harmful algal blooms are a threat to human health. Yet, we don't understand how changes in gene expression of the main culprit, Microcystis, facilitate blooms. Our latest collab, led by Dr. Lauren Krausfeldt and @jochrome1.bsky.social , sheds light on this process. journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

On page 215: "...an interesting feature of NCBI Taxonomy that every taxon has been assigned a stable, unique numerical identifier, called the Taxon ID (TaxID). Wider recognition of this number across all biodiversity databases could go a long way toward greater federation and interoperability."

The 2008 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) needs to be bolstered. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

" The Biodiversity Genomics 2024 conference starts tomorrow! The Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics (ASG) Project starts at 11 AM EST and has a great slate of speakers - www.biodiversitygenomicsconference.org/%22

" The Biodiversity Genomics 2024 conference starts tomorrow! The Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics (ASG) Project starts at 11 AM EST and has a great slate of speakers - www.biodiversitygenomicsconference.org/%22

Applications are still open to attend. The 29th year of GonGen has a curriculum which emphasizes the most recent conceptual, technical, and analytical methods in the field. I will try to add some marine perspectives. conservationgenetics.org).https://conservationgenetics.org/congen2025/

@invertebrates.bsky.social. The BG24 program is up. Register here: www.biodiversitygenomicsconference.org/registration... Carlos Prada: University of Rhode Island, and GIGA president will present -"Speciation across depth gradients in reef corals"

Update: archive.org is back online in a provisional, read-only manner. Learn more in our latest post: blog.archive.org/2024/10/21/i...

@invertebrates.bsky.social. The BG24 program is up. Register here: www.biodiversitygenomicsconference.org/registration... Carlos Prada: University of Rhode Island, and GIGA president will present -"Speciation across depth gradients in reef corals"