Very happy to share Alyssa's Concepts & Synthesis piece, with @simonvanvliet.bsky.social ! We argue microbial interactions can be understood as modular processes, and that this helps us better characterize, model, and predict community dynamics. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Excited to share that I've been awarded a 5-year NIH MIRA (R35) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences! The lab is growing! We're recruiting postdocs and research techs interested in microbial ecology, quantitative microscopy, microfluidics, and molecular biology. Please share!

Excited to share our new paper! Emanuele and @benjaminraach.bsky.social combine experiments and modelling to show that phage-mediated lysis can increase the growth rate of surviving bacteria by releasing resources back into the environment. 👇 www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Phage-mediated lysis increases growth rate of surviving bacterial cells

Microbiology

cell.com

Delighted to share this review, which was recently published in its final form. We hope it will serve as a useful primer on community ecology for microbiologists, and were thrilled to have many of our group members involved in this piece! 🤩

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

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

Very excited to share our new preprint, led by Alyssa Henderson! We ask why auxotrophy is so widespread in bacteria, and find that phylogeny is the dominant predictor of autotrophy, as opposed to environmental context. Check it out! 👇

Amino acid auxotrophy is a feature of a distinct bacterial lifestyle across environments

Amino acid auxotrophy, the loss of biosynthetic potential for an amino acid, is a highly prevalent feature of microbial life, yet the evolutionary processes driving its distribution in nature remain u...

doi.org

Excited to share our new paper led by Divvya Ramesh: Limits to the evolution of metabolic dependency in spatially structured microbial communities 🧫 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Limits to the evolution of metabolic dependency in spatially structured microbial communities

In microbial communities, evolutionary processes can lead to loss of biosynthetic pathways, creating metabolic dependencies. The Black Queen Hypothesi…

sciencedirect.com

We are incredibly grateful to have spent three inspiring days in beautiful Blonay at our annual group retreat, discussing science and continuing our group tradition of forming human pyramids! 🤸

Excited to share our new work! We found that bacteria can turn antagonism into a foraging strategy - by killing their neighbours, and eating their remains 🧫🔬💥

Glen Dsouza@nonresidentdesi.bsky.social · last yr.

Thrilled to share our new paper in @science.org describing our discovery that bacteria can switch from competitors to bonafide predators when resources run dry—arming nanoscale “spears” (T6SS) to stab & consume neighbours. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #MicroSKy #Microbiology

How does metabolic dependency evolve at the single cell level? 🔄 In our new preprint, Divvya Ramesh combines microfluidics, microscopy and modelling to show that the benefits of gene loss are highly context dependent. Check it out here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Olga Schubert from @eawag.bsky.social / @ethzurich.bsky.social on Causes and consequences of collective metabolism in microbial communities #KNVM2025

Check out our new perspective on spatial patterns in microbial communities, the product of an exciting collaboration led by Alyssa Henderson and @adelpanta.bsky.social ! 🧫

Simon van Vliet@simonvanvliet.bsky.social · last yr.

What determines the spatial structure of microbial communities? In our new review we discuss the factors and feedbacks that affect spatial patterning and methods to study them. Great collaboration w. @saramitri.bsky.social @adelpanta.bsky.social & @micsysecolab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🦠

We are so thrilled that Martin and Olga have won the Art of Leadership (ALEA) award - for being incredible group leaders who give us independence, support, trust, and ultimately prioritise our wellbeing above all else. We are so grateful to be co-led by them!

Thrilled to announce that Matthias Hülsmann's new perspective is now out in @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social! This exciting work is shaping how our group thinks about collective microbiome metabolism. Check it out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A framework for understanding collective microbiome metabolism - Nature Microbiology

This Perspective explores why microbiome members perform partial metabolism of substrates and suggests that proteome efficiency is a driver of collective microbiome metabolism.

nature.com

Check out this new preprint on antagonism as a foraging strategy, led by the brilliant Astrid Stubbusch and @nonresidentdesi.bsky.social!

Glen Dsouza@nonresidentdesi.bsky.social · 2y ago

New preprint! A bit of new direction for my research program: How can bacteria get nutrients when autonomous growth is not possible or passive leakage is not enough to support high growth? Shoot spearguns with toxins into other cells and leak out nutrients! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Grateful for the opportunity to share my enthusiasm and thoughts on microbial ecology and bacterial communities in Cell Systems! What an exciting time to contribute to this fascinating field and to adress the „macro in the micro“. www.cell.com/cell-systems...

How can concepts from ecology enable insights about cellular communities?

Historically, microbiology has been markedly concerned with pathogens and their modes of action. Upon Koch’s revolutionary finding that microorganisms can be causal of disease, understandably, there w...

cell.com

Check out our new paper, led by Astrid Stubbusch and @nonresidentdesi.bsky.social on bacterial degradation-dispersal cycles, out in @elife.bsky.social!

Glen Dsouza@nonresidentdesi.bsky.social · 2y ago

New work out in @eLife! Possibly the last one in our series on bacterial aggregation behaviours on polysaccharides. We knew cells were engaging in collective behaviours. But how do they know when to leave and why? We provide potential answers in this work elifesciences.org/articles/93855