In today's lunchtime meeting at @voltcenter.bsky.social @kajsaroslund.bsky.social gave a super update on all the projects she has been working on: from caves in the south of Portugal, to remote Greenland!

Another one of my PhD papers finally came out last week!! 😁 Here, we studied the taxonomy and physiology of two bacterial isolates from Northern Greenland... And we conclude that they belong to two novel species, previously unknown to science 😎 Check it out here 👉 doi.org/10.1099/ijse...

Nesterenkonia maliinae sp. nov. and Arthrobacter arnarulunnguaqae sp. nov., two halotolerant, psychrotolerant and alkaliphilic actinobacteria isolated from Peary Land, Northern Greenland

Strains CF4.4T and KK5.5T, previously isolated from samples of biocrust and permafrost, respectively, collected from Northern Greenland, were characterized using a polyphasic approach. Both strains we...

doi.org

“This data won’t be published.” 😱 That’s what my PhD supervisor told me in 2018. He was right — at the time. As an independent researcher, I revisited it on my own terms. Now, it’s a peer-reviewed publication. Would you classify it as perseverance 😇 or stubbornness 😈? doi.org/10.1093/fems...

Structural and evolutionary insights into the isoprene monooxygenases

Abstract. Isoprene, a highly reactive biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) emitted by terrestrial vegetation, influences atmospheric chemistry but its

doi.org

🎄Early Christmas news! Chapter IV of my PhD thesis has been accepted for publication in @femsmicro.org Microbiology Ecology 🤘 We show how three Greenlandic bacteria shift their VOC profiles along a salt gradient. Read it here👉 doi.org/10.1093/fems... Stay tuned for another paper coming out soon! 🤞

Volatilomic complexity of three Northern Greenland bacterial isolates across a salt gradient

Abstract. The High Arctic deserts of remote northern Greenland are expected to become warmer and wetter due to climate change. Precipitation changes will i

doi.org

Very interesting article 🤓 It is rare that we can access natural laboratories like this. Kudos to the Icelandic government for protecting this ephemeral island!

Ingeborg Klarenberg@ingeborgklarenberg.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The story of Surtsey. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Side note: One often thinks they're not recovering low-abundance taxa because they're low-abundance. But with Illumina, it's also likely because they're low-GC and Illumina has strong GC bias. You can fix this with wetlab intervention like this, or using ONT instead, which doesn't have a GC-bias.🧵

Tominaga K. (tomiken)@pacyc184.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Genomic recovery from rare terrestrial microbes enabled by DNA-based GC-fractionation | ISME Communications | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/ismecommun/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ismeco/ycaf152/8246624?rss=1&login=false

It apPEARs more exPEARiments are needed. The PEARameters are imPEARcise, and it is imPEARative to PEARform PEAR-wise comPEARisons.

A sad but necessary article 😕

James Bradley@drbradbrad.bsky.social · last yr.

What does a warmer Arctic winter look like? 🥵🌡️💦 We went to Svalbard to study the frozen winter but encountered 4.7°C & rain 🌧️ Shocked, unsettled & forced to rethink our entire plan, we document in @natcomms.nature.com what we saw & what it means for a rapidly changing Arctic 🧵👇 tinyurl.com/r85d3bpf

Science is coming to a park near you! 🌳 As part of BIOCUE , we’re sampling parks to explore how nature-based urban rewilding affects soil health, compared to traditional grass lawns. Today, we took samples from Grøndalsparken in Copenhagen 🇩🇰 to do some preliminary tests. 🌱 Stay tuned for more! 🌱

Isn't it nice when you're evaluating a difficult sampling site and you find out that someone already made a path that you can use? 😁

Very interesting paper by Uchijima et al. with an innovative way to isolate chemolithotrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria! Read the full paper here -> doi.org/10.1093/fems...

Custom-made medium approach for effective enrichment and isolation of chemolithotrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria

“Custom-made” medium approach to effectively enrich and isolate the difficult-to-culture chemolithotrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria from the natural environ

doi.org

Figuring out what we need to buy for our experiments this summer to measure carbon use efficiency and much more. Lots of exciting stuff coming soon!

After a lot of paperwork, my bacteria are finally ready to see the world! Destination: DSMZ, Germany.

This week I attended the 1st International Symposium on Volatile Interactions in Ecosystems organised by @voltcenter.bsky.social It was full of interesting talks, posters and people. And I'm happy I was to contribute with a talk of my own!

Increased Growth Temperatures Alter Arctic Plant Responses to Heat Wave and Drought 📄 buff.ly/2NU4KiE @martacontreras.bsky.social @riikkarinnan.bsky.social @lundjing.bsky.social @voltcenter.bsky.social @villumfonden.bsky.social @dg.dk

🍃 Successful BIOCUE kick-off meeting at @wslresearch.bsky.social! We spent two lovely days together and designed our strategy to uncover the influence of #nature based solutions on #carbon use efficiency. This will be of extreme importance in our fight against #climatechange! Stay tuned for more 📻

Cool #science alert! “In this paper, we have compiled our current understanding of MVOCs in extreme environments. I hope that this review can serve as a starting point for anyone interested in this topic.” - @masalgar.bsky.social #FEMSmicroBlog @dg.dk fems-microbiology.org/femsmicroblo...

#FEMSmicroBlog: Sniffing the most extreme forms of life - FEMS

Even in extreme environments, extremophiles need to communicate with each other, for which some use volatile organic compounds.

fems-microbiology.org

Scientists who study climate don't automatically attribute all changes to human activity. Rather, we carefully investigate every possible natural factor that could explain the planet's warming. Could these be the real culprits? The evidence is in--and the answer is NO. This thread explains! 🧵

Microorganisms produce a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with diverse functions. @masalgar.bsky.social et al. review microbial VOCSs (#MVOCs) from #extremophiles and their potential applications. buff.ly/D2dRawC #FEMSMicrobiolRev

Check out our newest #research! We quantify the interactions between increased #temperature & #heatwave & #drought in #Arctic #plants, with focus on #VOCs, #photosynthesis & #phenology. doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... @voltcenter.bsky.social @dg.dk @villumfonden.bsky.social @globalchangebio.bsky.social

Increased Growth Temperatures Alter Arctic Plant Responses to Heat Wave and Drought

As the Arctic warms and heatwaves become more frequent, vegetation changes may alter the ecosystem. We investigated how warmer temperatures modulate Arctic shrub responses to heat wave and drought. A...

doi.org

Just in! 📸 The first images from yesterday’s #HeraMission flyby of Mars and its moon Deimos. 👇 www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

Physical and chemical conditions of the majority of Earth's volume and universe are too extreme for life to exist. @charlescockell questions the limits of microbial life, the use of inhabited spaces for hypothesis testing, and its ethics. #FEMSMicrobiolRev buff.ly/4wH4noG

Fungi made Earth’s land liveable by building networks that released nutrients locked in primordial rock and supplied those nutrients to plant roots https://go.nature.com/41lvtBg

Revealing how fungi build planet-altering ‘road’ networks

Imaging study reveals how fungal networks are constructed.

go.nature.com

Isolated in just 3 years! (previously, 12 years). We obtained two strains from 'Hodarchaeales', proposed to be closest to our archaeal ancestor. Our analysis suggests the ancestor was an anaerobic, syntrophic, peptidotrophic, archaeon with a simple intracellular structure and possible aerotolerance.

Eukaryotes' closest relatives are internally simple syntrophic archaea

Eukaryotes are theorized to have originated from an archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly 'Asgard' archaea)1,2. The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insight3,4 but are distantly ...

biorxiv.org

We should avoid this kind of confusing reporting. The situation is dire as it is already, we mustn't confuse policy makers and the public.

Dan Miller@danmiller999.bsky.social · last yr.

You may read that a new study says the AMOC will not collapse. Not true. The wind-driven currents will remain but the thermohaline currents may collapse in 20~30 years. It doesn't contradict what other "collapse" studies say & the authors agree. www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...

A super exciting PhD position available in #peatland #biochemistry. Join @yijiao.bsky.social and me working with cutting edge #VOC cycling in peat. + nice colleagues @voltcenter.bsky.social + Copenhagen + competitive salary + good PhD program employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=16... Please repost!

📢PhD Vacancy📢: Fully funded PhD fellowship in #peatland #VOC #biogeochemistry at Copenhagen University! This position is part of my Villum young investigator grant, co-supervised with @riikkarinnan.bsky.social, and hosted by the @voltcenter.bsky.social. ➡️https://employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=163573⬅️

If you don't know about velvet worms, you're missing out!

Dan Jagger@auditorynerves.bsky.social · last yr.

An ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature that hunts by projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year. 🧪🐛 Peripatoides novaezealandiae, or Ngāokeoke in Te Reo Māori, have rows of pudgy legs & skin speckled like a galaxy. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

New paper out that (we hope) will be useful to anyone with an interest in Antarctic soil microbial communities: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A comprehensive survey of soil microbial diversity across the Antarctic continent - Polar Biology

Antarctic soils are unique from those found nearly anywhere else on Earth yet can still harbor a broad diversity of microorganisms able to tolerate the challenging conditions typical of the continent....

link.springer.com

Unlike bacteria (except mycoplasma), archaea don't ubiquitously have a peptidoglycan equivalent at all. However, some lineages have pseudomurein. This study characterises its biosynthesis, contributing genes and evolutionary links with bacterial counterparts 🔗 journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....