So happy to share our new paper out now in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! We establish Pirsonia-Coscinodiscus as a model pathosystem and uncover how this tiny parasite infects and kills bloom-forming marine diatoms 🌊🦠 rdcu.be/fuQyF

Super excited that our paper led by @sandinmm.eurosky.social in PNAS is out! We show that crown-group eukaryotes were already taxonomically and ecologically diverse throughout the Mesoproterozoic, revealing complex communities well before the Neoproterozoic radiation. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Environmental phylogenetics supports a steady diversification of crown eukaryotes starting from the mid-Proterozoic | PNAS

Molecular clock and preservation of early microfossil assemblages suggest that eukaryotes were present and already diverse more than ~1600 million ...

pnas.org

New preprint: We studied the population dynamics of Arctic #phytoplankton and #mycoplankton and found evidence for chytrid-mediated diatom bloom termination. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Congrats @paulinethome.bsky.social #protists #protistsonsky #algae #diatoms #chytrids

Pipeline to integrates PR2 and WoRMS for #metabarcoding studies #protists #diversity

pr2‐Wormifier: A Bioinformatics Pipeline to Create Custom Reference Databases for Improved Metabarcoding of Marine Protists

Metabarcoding of environmental and ancient environmental DNA (eDNA and sedaDNA) is a powerful approach for studying and monitoring marine communities. However, its effectiveness is limited by the avai...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

What *actually* works — right here, right now — to address climate change? Here you go. This is the result of thousands of hours of painstaking research and analysis from the Project Drawdown team.

Global view of the role of apicomplexans and other parasitic protists in soils #parasites #protists #diversity www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

1/11 🤩Sooooo happy to see this work on a new new group #algae. Looks like #centrohelids - predatory ancient eukaryotic lineage sometimes harbor vertically-inherited plastids from #dictyochophytes. Amazing work, @annewalraven.bsky.social, glad to be on board! More below:

Anne Walraven@annewalraven.bsky.social · last mo.

Very excited that the preprint of the main paper of my PhD is now out! We show that Meringosphaera is the first centrohelid with permanent plastids: doi.org/10.64898/202... @zlatogursky.bsky.social, @pjkeelinglab.bsky.social, prof. Rachel A. Foster, and @fburki.bsky.social #protistsonsky

Very excited that the preprint of the main paper of my PhD is now out! We show that Meringosphaera is the first centrohelid with permanent plastids: doi.org/10.64898/202... @zlatogursky.bsky.social, @pjkeelinglab.bsky.social, prof. Rachel A. Foster, and @fburki.bsky.social #protistsonsky

Single cell genomics and fluorescence microscopy suggest a permanent plastid in a marine centrohelid

Photosynthetic organelles (plastids), which originated via primary endosymbiosis between an Archaeplastida ancestor and cyanobacteria, have shaped the Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere and spread across ...

doi.org

I wanted to like QED's new 1% preprint ranking. I really did. But the more I looked at the data, the more uncomfortable it made me. Here is my full peer review. open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...

My Peer Review of The 1%

I wanted to like QED's new 1% ranking. I don't.

open.substack.com

phylogenetic signal of extinction through the rise and fall of early vertebrates: field of bullets or clustered strike? academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

The phylogenetic signal of extinction through the rise and fall of early vertebrates: field of bullets or clustered strike?

Abstract. We investigate patterns of phylogenetic selectivity of extinction in early aquatic vertebrates from the Silurian to the Carboniferous, an interva

academic.oup.com

New #ISEPpapers #PrePrint! A billion-year-old bacterial machinery replicates plastid DNA and supports kleptoplastidy www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #Protists #Algae #Microbes #Evolution #Bacteria

We'll do a proper launch announcement Monday, but as of now, the latest OpenCTD, the Sixth Edition of the Construction and Operation Manual, and all the firmware, shapefiles, and gerbers are live! OpenCTD Rev8 is here! github.com/Oceanography...

GitHub - OceanographyforEveryone/OpenCTD: The OpenCTD is a low-cost, open-source CTD for researchers and citizen scientists.

The OpenCTD is a low-cost, open-source CTD for researchers and citizen scientists. - OceanographyforEveryone/OpenCTD

github.com

Don't forget to submit a proposal for our latest special feature 👉 Time-dependency in Micro- and Macroevolutionary Rates 🌍 🧪 Deadline for proposals is the 10th July, and paper submission will be due in February 2027⏰️ Find out more and submit a proposal 👇 buff.ly/2yt4RLt

🧬 New preprint! We clustered 5.6 million bacterial genomes into genomically cohesive units (GCUs) 500× faster than existing tools. (In just 14 hours, 16.5 GB RAM using 48 CPUs). 🦠🐙Meet gemsparcl 💎✨! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Just start writing. My new post: substack.com/home/post/p-...

1/9 For years, debates about microbial biogeography have sometimes been framed as a choice. Either microorganisms are everywhere. Or geography matters. But what if that is a false choice? @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social @prbb.org @csic.es #protistsOnSKy

My last pic of the organizers closing out the inaugural session of the #MicroSEA course, dedicated to hands on single cell methods with micro-eukaryotes. It was an honor and a pleasure to share. Bravo @johandecelle.bsky.social @mjamy.bsky.social @protistwtmostest.bsky.social and other organizers!

Me and my friend Cymbomonas, the mixotrophic green alga with 4 flagella. #MicroSEA course clay modeling activity 2026. #protistsonsky

10/10 Perhaps aggregation is not an evolutionary dead end after all! Perhaps it was one of the evolutionary experiments from which animal multicellularity emerged. Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @icreacommunity.bsky.social #AnimalOrigins #Evolution #Multicellularity

1/10 For decades, cellular aggregation was considered an evolutionary dead end. Cells could come together temporarily. But complex multicellular organisms like animals? Our study, led by JP Gerdt, with Ruibao & @jennahed.bsky.social suggests it may be time to rethink that🧵 #ProtistsOnSKy

Very proud about the first true citizen science based biology preprint ever lead by my research group, and yes, I did field work to assess the insect biodiversity of our small village in southern Crete: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Today marks 30 years since we identified the apicoplast, a relict plastid in human and animal parasites (PMID 8632819). Apicoplasts are the target of the widely used antimalarial prophylactic doxycycline, which has saved many thousands of malaria infections.

Our method, savont, for generating amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) for long-read amplicons is now on bioRxiv. Work with @lh3lh3.bsky.social and help from @mkddueholm.bsky.social and team (Marie Riisgaard-Jensen, @kirk3gaard.bsky.social, Kasper Skytte Andersen) github.com/bluenote-157... 1/6

bioRxiv Bioinfo@biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sensitive long-read amplicon sequence variant recovery with savont https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.26.727271v1

I'm looking for a postdoc to work on diatom phylogenomics. Reach out by email with questions. Please share and repost! uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/UASYS/job/Fa...

Postdoctoral Fellow in Biological Sciences

Current University of Arkansas System employees, including student employees and graduate assistants, need to log in to Workday via MyApps.Microsoft.com, then access Find Jobs from the Workday search ...

uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

The concise history of modeling character evolution. Handy timeline. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🧪 #EvoBio #Paleobio

🧬 Diatoms are an extraordinarily diverse group of photosynthetic organisms, with tens of thousands of described species. Yet technical challenges still limit large-scale diatom genome production. EBP projects and biodiversity genomics R&D teams are working to solve them. 🌊🔬 #Diatoms #Biodiversity

🔬 We have an open PhD position at SLU Uppsala! We're looking for a curious & driven PhD student to join the #ECOPHARM project funded by @kawresearch.bsky.social and investigate plasmid-dependent phages in aquatic ecosystems. Pls share with anyone who might be interested! www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

Diversity of Plasmid-Dependent Phages in Aquatic Ecosystems | slu.se

SLU - Science and Education for Sustainable Life

slu.se

Between 1985--2023, MIT's faculty grew 9%. Administrative staff grew 189%. 📈 Why? In new @pnas.org paper, we use dynamical system model to show administrative bloat can emerge without empire-building--just from well-intentioned problem-solving gone awry www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Hello #world, meet 1,000× Expansion Microscopy. A small gel would grow to the size of an Olympic swimming pool, while amino-acid-scale distances become visible with ordinary light microscopy. Led by Helena Hu from @eboyden3.bsky.social's lab, in collab with us. Story: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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