The latent simplicity of microbial ecological interactions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.30.741683v1

New preprint from our lab Statistical learning of bacterial growth in combinatorially constructed environments, led by brilliant PhD student Andrea Arrabal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We systematically study nutrient-nutrient interactions in bacterial growth under carbon-limiting conditions.

New preprint from our lab Statistical learning of bacterial growth in combinatorially constructed environments, led by brilliant PhD student Andrea Arrabal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We systematically study nutrient-nutrient interactions in bacterial growth under carbon-limiting conditions.

New paper out today in Nature Microbiology: "Epistatic interactions inform rational design of synthetic microbial communities for bioremediation." 🧵https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-026-02386-4 @kiseokmicro.bsky.social @nitmb.bsky.social

Can we use ecological principles to increase coexistence in synthetic bacterial communities? Our new paper is now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: "Environmental complexity shapes maintenance of bacterial diversity through context-dependent interactions among niche axes" doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Environmental complexity shapes maintenance of bacterial diversity through context-dependent interactions among niche axes

Abstract. Microbial communities are often more species-rich than predicted from classical ecological models. The high levels of coexistence observed in nat

academic.oup.com

Eye-opening work by @olimeacock.bsky.social (former postdoc, now PI in Sheffield). He presents an exact mapping from steady-state consumer-resource to generalized Lotka-Volterra models, revealing that cross-feeding can lead to competition for other limiting resources. Feedback pls!

Oliver Meacock@olimeacock.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint from @saramitri.bsky.social and me: tinyurl.com/3dsjnm4d The headline result - we derive a general way to connect mechanistic ecosystem models to the gLV equation. This reveals that strengthening cooperative mechanisms can make effective gLV interactions increasingly competitive. Weird!

While the world prepares for the World Cup, the prettiest city in Europe is going nuts about our football team playing the promotion playoff to the 2nd division in Spain. Vamos Mi Zamora! eldiadezamora.es/art/70948/la...

La mística del Ruta de la Plata conduce al Zamora CF a la fase final por el ascenso

Los rojiblancos marcaron dos goles, el último, de penalti, ejecutado por Ramos, en el minuto 97, y controlaron al Villarreal en la prórroga. Ahora solo queda el Sabadell para evitar el ascenso a Segunda División

eldiadezamora.es

🚨Online Seminar NEXT WEEK- 10.06.26 | 16:00 UK Alvaro Sanchez: "The latent simplicity of microbial ecological interactions" Please share & to attend online please register to our 📧: lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscr...

Paying peer reviewers works. Expanded Fast & Fair experiment @biologyopen.bsky.social: • 5.5 vs 37.7 working days to decision with reviews • ~3 vs ~9 reviewer invitations per manuscript • no reduction in editor-assessed review quality • similar acceptance rates www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Now published! This was fun to write, thanks to @asanchezlab.bsky.social for the invitation. Feedback welcome as macroecology will be a core component of the forthcoming SOMA (Scales Of Microbial Architectonics) Laboratoire @ Genoscope enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Will Shoemaker@shoestrapped.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Happy to share my solo-authored Perspective "An Interpretation, Survey, and Outlook of Microbial Macroecology"! Making time these last few months to take stock of the patterns us microbial ecologists examine + models we invoke has been invaluable. Feedback welcome! ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Delighted to see this out in its final form! doi.org/10.1093/isme... We established a discussion group focussed on the history of community ecology and how it informs our understanding of microbiota. This review distils those discussions to provide a guide for microbiologists entering the field

A microbiologist’s field guide to community ecology

Abstract. Many microbiological outcomes are shaped by the determinants of community composition, including the factors that allow pathogens to invade healt

doi.org

One of the many sources cited in the new papal encyclical is... Gandalf

Very nice experimental study from Jessica Purswani's lab. Full factorial design of microbial consortia where multiple plant growth-promoting functions were measured. doi.org/10.1111/1751...

BSocial Tool Deciphers Highly Functional Plant Growth‐Promoting Bacterial Consortia

The use of the online tool BSocial can be used to decipher microbial social behaviour and select highly functional plant growth-promoting consortia. Positive correlations are observed between species...

doi.org

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems -in @cellcellpress.bsky.social by Francisca Gallego-del-Sol, @danielsin909.bsky.social, and Cora Chmielowska et al from @albertomarina.bsky.social, José Penadés www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... #PhageSky #Bacillus #AimP

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems

Gallego-del-Sol et al. show that arbitrium-coding phages can sense non-cognate peptide signals from other phages to regulate lysis-lysogeny decisions. This crosstalk affects lysis-lysogeny outcomes of...

cell.com

The version of record of our revised preprint is finally out today. In it, we introduce a fast and reliable methdology for the full factorial design of microbial communities, i.e. constructing every monoculture, pair, trio, four-member,... n-member co-culture of N strains. doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Full factorial construction of synthetic microbial communities

A rapid, inexpensive, and easy to implement experimental protocol enables the construction of combinatorially complete sets of microbial consortia.

doi.org

Interesting new preprint by @seppekuehnlab.bsky.social that provides a mechanistic basis for the emergence of global epistasis in microbial community function landscapes

SeppeKuehnLab@seppekuehnlab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A theory to explain global epistasis in microbial communities

"Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are." It turns out, microbes follow the same rule! Very proud to share our lab's new paper in @natmicrobiol.nature.com showing that bacteria don't just respond to their environment, they respond to each other. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Community context reshapes microbial proteomes and reduces functional overlap - Nature Microbiology

Biotic interactions modulate protein abundance, reducing functional redundancy and increasing productivity in complex bacterial communities.

nature.com

Interesting new preprint from Giulia Ghedini's lab comparing trait-based and population-based predictability in phytoplankton communities: Fant et al, Ecological predictability emerges at the population level in phytoplankton communities www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Moran et al. in Science Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems

A long-standing hypothesis of microbial ecology is that simple patterns might persist despite community complexity or even emerge because of it. However, the concept of “emergent simplicity” remains partly intuitive. Here, we defined emergent ...

science.org

It looks like there will be an open postdoc position in my lab soon. I'll be looking for someone with substantial wet-lab experience in microbiology / microbial ecology / evolution / physiology. If everything goes well, an ad will be coming. But if you know someone, ask them to reach out already.

Microbial communities can harbor many species that do not coexist in pairs, yet can coexist in the full community. Here we provide the mathematical foundations of emergent coexistence, and explain why it can't be predicted from pairwise tests journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

New preprint alert!!! 🚀🤓 We are very happy to finally share this with the world — the result of seven years of work and a new tool to study integrons and discover new functions encoded in these bacterial platforms. If you want to know more, here is a thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This paper started as an idea @albertomarina.bsky.social had many years ago… which of course means he was right all along 😄. Some of us just needed a few years (and a lot of experiments) to catch up. Grateful (and slightly humbled) to be part of this. Thanks Alberto! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems

Gallego-del-Sol et al. show that arbitrium-coding phages can sense non-cognate peptide signals from other phages to regulate lysis-lysogeny decisions. This crosstalk affects lysis-lysogeny outcomes of...

cell.com

We are pleased to share our last article rdcu.be/fabhM. It offers the most comprehensive analysis so far of Ab+non-Ab resistance genes in human gut microbiome, using an Indigenous population (low industrialization, chronic Hg exposure from gold mining) 6/6👇

Glad to see our latest work out in Nature Microbiology!! Extremely grateful to everyone involved in the project. Check it out!! 👇🏻👇🏻

Alvaro San Millan@sanmillan.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Final version of our last paper is out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Final version of our last paper is out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through insertion sequence-mediated gene inactivation - Nature Microbiology

Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

nature.com

From genes to collective modes: biological constraints shape metabolic evolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.11.711104v1

📢¡Atención! El #IRNASA-CSIC busca incorporar un/a Técnico/a de Internacionalización y Gestión de Proyectos Europeos. 🗓️Hasta el 23 de marzo. 🔗Más info: www.irnasa.csic.es/nuevo-puesto...

Excited to share our latest work! 📝 We measured the fitness effect of 136 AMR genes and found that many are neutral or even beneficial without selection. 🤯🧬 Oxygen availability can flip their fitness and our stochastic model indicates that oxygen fluctuations help maintain them. Learn more 👇🏼

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Fitness effects of antimicrobial resistance genes in changing environments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.06.710025v1

This! 👇

Charles Mullon@charlesmullon.bsky.social · 5mo ago

With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭 To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀 tinyurl.com/2wem36zz