Our latest contribution on #regulatoryevolution in which we show that the shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations. Led by @simonaube.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Saturation mutagenesis of the FCY1 promoter in budding yeast shows that adaptation to 5-fluorocytosine is not accessible through single cis-regulatory mutations, despite large mutational effects on pr...

nature.com

Exhilarated to share a 2nd @science.org cover article this month from our lab @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social! A collaboration with US & Mexico colleagues on the role of a Mexican biogeographic holding pen in shaping the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI)(1/11) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

5 (+?) independent plant lineages evolved to text the same bacteria for nitrogen. we just need to learn the language they're using. www.cell.com/trends/plant...

Plant–cyanobacterial symbioses: mutualism with emerging translational possibilities

Engineering rhizobial–plant nitrogen fixation in crops is a major goal in plant synthetic biology. We propose expanding efforts to plant–cyanobacterial symbioses as an alternative path. Targeting the ...

cell.com

New publication: The legacy of #soil chemistry: a hidden manipulator driving plant–soil feedbacks. #belowgroundinteractions #plantperformance #volatilecompounds doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

pnas.org

📣 New preprint! 🧵 Fantastic work led by @antonkraege.bsky.social Fact: Cerato-platanins are everywhere in fungi. Found across the fungal kingdom, implicated in everything from development to virulence to immune activation. But what do they *actually* do? We finally found the answer 👇

Cretaceous moss–cyanobacteria association reveals trophic interactions in polar forests of Antarctica Walker et al. habitualb.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Within the @trr341.bsky.social JJ Szymanski has an interesting postdoc position for leading plant Ecological genetics AI recruiting.fz-juelich.de/jobposting/5...

Postdoctoral Researcher - Machine Learning for Plant Regulatory Genomics

recruiting.fz-juelich.de

Preprint! How do "friendly" rhizobia build a legume nodule? @albinteulet.bsky.social found that some may carry hidden transcription factors - proteins that mimic DNA-binding folds to enter the plant nucleus and rewrite its developmental program. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/6)

Microbial chitinases perform functions beyond antagonism, including facilitating host colonization by interfering with chitin-triggered immunity. We review evidence that their diversification reflects adaptation to distinct host-associated ecological niches. academic.oup.com/femsre/artic...

The 'heart' of the #Mycorrhiza #fungi #symbiosis is the arbuscule where plant and fungus exchange nutrients and carbon. Try the arbuscule growth simulator. Let me know how you adjust parameters to get the most beautiful arbuscules. schornacklabslcu.github.io/Arbuscule-Sim/

The mycobiont of the lichen Xanthoria parietina produces the siderophore ferrichrome which enables iron acquisition and nutrient exchange with its algal photobiont. Great collaboration with my group & @metalichen.bsky.social led by Hubertus Haas 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“move from preprint to peer-reviewed publication leaves the central claims of most abstracts intact, indicating preprints are a reliable source…papers that were never posted as preprints were retracted at roughly twice the rate of those that were…” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Tracking claim changes from preprint to publication across 72,644 biomedical studies using large language models

Preprints now disseminate a large share of biomedical research before peer review. Because they have not yet passed peer review, some scientists regard preprint claims as unverified or potentially unr...

biorxiv.org

A biology journal trialled paying their reviewers and found it led to faster first editorial decisions – and increased review quality. go.nature.com/446SaLu

Why paying peer reviewers works, according to a journal’s editor-in-chief

A biology journal which paid peer reviewers found that the approach cut the time to a first editorial decision by 85% and maintained high-quality reviews.

go.nature.com

In meiosis homologous chromosomes pair and exchange DNA non-randomly. How does reproductive gender and chromosome sequence shape recombination landscapes? To answer this we generated new wild tomato genomes and many reciprocal crosses with @usadellab.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wild tomato genome assemblies reveal structural variants and repeat content act as recombination barriers - Nature Communications

Introgression of genes from wild tomato species can enhance the robustness of modern tomatoes. Here van Rengs et al. describe the genomes of wild tomato species and show how reproductive gender and st...

nature.com

1/ Excited to share our new bioRxiv preprint! "4D spatial transcriptomics reveals nodule identity emerges through stacked parallel developmental programs" 📄 doi.org/10.64898/202... Using Xenium, we generated a 4D (3D space + time) atlas of nodule development in Medicago truncatula.

I know it seems like a heretical idea, but one way to figure out if a preprint is really interesting (to you) is... to read the preprint. Then, in the spirit of sharing, send a note to authors: a simple kudos or a more detailed question. I do this a dozen times a year. It's awesome. Try it.

1/8 What if the genomic features we associate with fungal pathogens were also used by mutualists? We assembled 41 scale lichen genomes across 11 Peltigera species with 30 chromosome scale and 5 T2T revealing an unexpected genomic toolkit behind lichen symbiosis. doi.org/10.64898/202... #lichen

A chromosome-scale super-pangenome of the lichen genus Peltigera reveals genome architecture and expanded interaction repertoires shared across pathogenic and mutualistic fungi

Fungi engage in associations with other organisms across a continuum from pathogenic to mutualistic lifestyles. Hence, they require a compendium of molecular capacities, including partner recognition,...

doi.org

A chromosome-scale super-pangenome of the lichen genus Peltigera reveals genome architecture and expanded interaction repertoires shared across pathogenic and mutualistic fungi https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.16.732702v1

📣 We are hiring! In the collaborative research center 'Plant Ecological Genetics' @teamthomma.bsky.social searches a PhD candidate to study the role of plant-associated microbiota in plant density responses and inter-plant competition. See project A07: sl1nk.com/b7z0doc Deadline July 10!

A new documentary on scientific approaches to replace industrial nitrogen fertilizers is now online @artefr.bsky.social (only in DE/FR). Among them is our and @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social's work @ensa-research.bsky.social further supported by @cibss.bsky.social. www.arte.tv/de/videos/11...

Dünger der Zukunft: Die Stickstoff-Revolution - Die ganze Doku | ARTE

Ohne künstlichen Stickstoffdünger wären die hohen Erträge der industriellen Landwirtschaft undenkbar. Doch der intensive Einsatz schädigt das Klima. Weltweit wird nach klimafreundlichen Alternativen g...

arte.tv

Updated @theplantjournal.bsky.social guidelines: avoid the use of terms such as “basal”, “early diverging lineage”, “primitive”, “ancestral plant”, “lower and higher plants” [..] recommends the use of specific terms such as “bryophytes”, “vascular plants” [..] onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Awesome! 👏 Finally, science has convinced sufficient politicians to approve the new NGT-rules to enable CRISPR-based plant breeding! Time to celebrate!🎉🎊🥂🧬✂️🌱 www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...

New genomic techniques for plants to boost innovation in sustainable agriculture | News | European Parliament

Parliament has adopted new rules facilitating access to new plants that are climate and pest resistant, give higher yields and require fewer pesticides.

europarl.europa.eu

just before he died, craig venter spoke to @sciam.bsky.social about the state of science in the US. it's a really eye-opening interview and part of our july/aug double issue celebrating #SciAmYoungScientists. check it out. www.scientificamerican.com/article/crai...

Craig Venter

In his final interview, the “swashbuckling” geneticist pointed the way for science

scientificamerican.com

We have openings at the University of Cologne, come and join our consortium in Plant Ecological Genetics TRR341!Applications open soon for 10 PhD position. Description here: trr341.uni-koeln.de/join-us #TRR341 #PlantEcologicalGenetics

When a protist engulfed a cynaobacterium, Earth changed forever! @jandevries.bsky.social, @caeciliafkunz.bsky.social, @heche.bsky.social & colleagues review the origins and evolution of archaeoplastids, the lineage that arose from this event, including plants & co www.cell.com/current-biol...

Interested in how #fungi came about on this planet? If so, take a look at my new article that just came out in @annualreviews.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1146/annu...

The Origin and Early Evolution of Fungi: Challenges, Inferences, and Principles

Fungi are widespread on our planet and essential for life as we know it, but how did they come about? Their last common ancestor lived hundreds of millions of years ago, but its characteristics, and t...

doi.org

New preprint out 🌱 We present a new T-DNA vector system for Arabidopsis that supports clean, genomically mapped, single-copy T-DNA insertion with predictable cell-type/conditional gene expression. @mokhalil.bsky.social + Gehring labs biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵1/16

Rational design of T-DNA vectors enables predictable, single-copy integration in Arabidopsis thaliana

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the dominant method for plant transgenesis, yet it frequently produces multi-copy, structurally complex T-DNA insertions associated with transgene silencing, u...

biorxiv.org

Yesterday, Plantletics 🌿, the running group representing the Institute for Plant Sciences @unicologne.bsky.social, took part in the #UniLauf, and we had a fantastic time‼️

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...