Ana Gutiérrez-Preciado talking about the microbial communities inhabiting the colorful, arsenic-rich extreme Amuyo Lagoons in northern Chile. #ISSOL2026 #Origins2026

Puri talking about the origin of eukaryotes at the Origins 2026 meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life in Paris #ISSOL #Origins2026

Talks and posters by DEEM team members at #SMBE2026: Archaea, eukaryotes, and phylogeny methods.

A few hours before the kickoff of #SMBE2026, visiting Grundtvig's Church, a rare example of Expressionist architecture in Copenhagen.

In our latest paper with @kristina-prokina.bsky.social, we describe many new species of Developea, a poorly-known group of Stramenopiles: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We have contributed to two recent opinion papers, one on the overwhelming burden of unnecessary bureaucracy in science and the other on the role that professional academies can play in addressing current societal challenges: shorturl.at/iy5JM shorturl.at/gd2X7

🌎 🧬 🖥️ logan-search.org the tool to query all SRA sequences (Dec 2023 snapshot) — just got major updates. Here's what's new. 🧵 1/12

Our thoughts on the recent article by Edu Ocaña-Pallares on the evolution of osmotrophic eukaryotes, just published in NEE: Reversal to osmotrophy in eukaryotes www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reversal to osmotrophy in eukaryotes - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Distant eukaryotic lineages convergently reverted from phagocytic predation to osmotrophy through co-option of ancestrally acquired bacterial genes and their subsequent mobilization via eukaryote-to-e...

nature.com

1/ Our new paper in Systematic Biology "Modeling Site-and-Branch-Heterogeneity with GFmix" led by @cgpmcc.bsky.social describes improved ways to model compositional heterogeneity across both sites and branches—an important source of error in deep phylogenomics. doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Modeling Site-and-Branch-Heterogeneity with GFmix

Abstract. Phylogenetic trees are often inferred from protein sequences sampled from diverse taxa across the tree of life. The compositions of these amino a

doi.org

GTDB release 11 based on RefSeq 232 (R11-RS232) is live at gtdb.ecogenomic.org. This release covers 901,341 genomes (23% increase) and has 199,923 species clusters (39% increase). Release notes at: forum.gtdb.ecogenomic.org/t/announcing.... Release statistics at: gtdb.ecogenomic.org/stats/r232.

In our latest study, we show that HGT of the ccyA gene from cyanobacteria enables some methanotrophic Methylococcaceae gammaproteobacteria to synthesize intracellular amorphous calcium carbonate (iACC) inclusions. enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

With @animalculum.bsky.social, we have studied the phylogeny of cryptophyte nucleomorphs within an enriched dataset of red algae. Surprisingly, they seem to be related to Cyanidiophytina. The origin of red secondary plastids remains an open question! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Latest output of the European Academy of Microbiology Task Force on Predatory Publishing Practices, initiated and steered by Stipan Jonjić and Ceren Karahan: Fragile Research Systems, Brain Drain, and Predatory Publishing in Under-resourced Countries url: academic.oup.com/microlife/ar...

Fragile Research Systems, Brain Drain, and Predatory Publishing in Under-resourced Countries

Abstract. Many countries with lower research & innovation capacity face persistent constraints in building stable research systems. Chronic underfundin

academic.oup.com

We have just published a short note on archaeal phylogeny: complex mixture models support a deep placement of Methanonatronarchaeia within Euryarchaea and indicate that three recently described groups (Halorutilales, Afararchaeaceae, and Ordosarchaeia) are actually the same. shorturl.at/5GMpU

Redox distribution of Asgard archaea and co-occurring taxa in microbial mats from an early Proterozoic ecosystem analog | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.20.713109v1?rss=1

Redox distribution of Asgard archaea and co-occurring taxa in microbial mats from an early Proterozoic ecosystem analog

Eukaryotes originated from the symbiosis of an Asgard archaeon, the alphaproteobacterial ancestor of mitochondria, and possibly additional bacterial contributions. This transition occurred in redox-transition environments such as microbial mats or shallow sediments ~2 billion years ago, when atmospheric oxygen was far lower than today. We investigated Asgard-enriched microbial mats from the low-oxygen, sulfidic Catherine volcano lake (Afar region, Ethiopia), mimicking early Proterozoic conditions. 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding, metagenomics, and metagenome-assembled genome analyses across redox-stratified layers of in situ and mesocosm-maintained mats revealed that Asgardarchaeota thrived in the sulfate-reduction zone, mainly co-occurring with Desulfurobacterota-Myxococcota, among others. Lokiarchaeia and Thorarchaeia preferred anoxic layers. Within Heimdallarchaeia, Heimdallarchaeales were enriched in upper layers, correlating with oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase and sulfate-reduction genes, and Hodarchaeales, in anoxic layers, correlating with methanogenesis. Although reactive-oxygen-species defense mechanisms were widespread, Asgardarchaeota lacked aerobic respiration. These results support the idea that Asgard archaea engaged primarily in syntrophic interactions with sulfate-reducers under early-Earth-like conditions. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, 101141745, 787904 Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR-23-CE02-0016-01, ANR-22-CE02-0012 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, https://ror.org/006wxqw41, GBMF9739

biorxiv.org

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.

Living patescibacterial (CPR) cells are a rare sight! Meet Strigamonas methylophilicida, a parasite of methylotrophic proteobacteria we just described in our latest paper: doi.org/10.1128/mbio...

Interested in microbial proteins and their diversity? 🖥️🧬🦠 We have recently released the Amino Acid Sequence Toolkit (AASTK). AASTK is designed to work with the GlobDB to create and work with datasets of protein sequences. AASTK currently consists of 4 tools: - CASM - PASR - CUGO - Meta 1/

I am happy to share the unfinished but nevertheless fascinating autobiography of the late Thomas Cavalier-Smith, written in 2020, shortly before Tom passed away in 2021. I thank Ema Cavalier-Smith for sharing the text with me. I recently finished curating […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Before he passed away in 2021, Tom Cavalier-Smith had drafted parts of his autobiography. It's now 'published' because Gáspár Jékely put a lot of effort in! Please enjoy and share: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

OrthoSNAP v1.6.0 is out. If you process large phylogenomic datasets, this release is built for your workflow. (1/3)

We are happy to welcome Xianzhe Gong to the team! His expertise in microbial metabolism and related fields will help us better characterize our collection of MAGs and cultured organisms from many different environments.

Playing with a new toy to study our favorite microbial mats.

Puri talking at the "Cell biology of eukaryogenesis" meeting organized by the @sbcf.bsky.social

First sampling of the year in a sunlit Parisian forest.

2026 kicks off with new faces in the lab! We’re excited to welcome Dina Boukheloua, Eliott Tempez, and Pierre van Ettro, who will be working on endosymbionts in protists, archaeal genome evolution, and aquatic amoeba diversity. Welcome to the team!

With our old friends Sergey, Luis and Guifré, we have published a minireview in @currentbiology.bsky.social about aphelids, the sister group to fungi, including why we think they are not fungi but, nevertheless, key to understand early fungal evolution. authors.elsevier.com/a/1mH793QW8S...

Near the end of the year, we are excited to welcome three new members to the team: Inés Ochoa (PhD student), and Charley McCarthy and Eva Zanditenas (postdocs). They will work on different projects using experimental and bioinformatics approaches.

Microbial eukaryotes keep challenging assumptions about eukaryotic cell and genome biology. Our upcoming workshop explores the frontier of protist genomics and how it shapes cell biology, ecology and evolution. Please save the date! Talks, posters and ECR events Websites and details coming soon

SMBE2026 Symposium 12 | Reconstructing the deep Tree of Life: challenges and new approaches 📨 Abstract submission smbe2026.org/abstracts 📋 Programme details smbe2026.org/programme #SMBE2026