iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Check out eukCHARMer, the new tool coming out of the Beinart Lab @symbiosisrox.bsky.social @urigso.bsky.social !! github.com/aschrecengos... (1/5)

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Maximilian Ganser @mhganser.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Tiny unicellular #eukaryotes, big #biomaterial inspiration. Excited to share our Nature Communications study showing that tintinnid ciliates build their chemical- and heat-resistant shells from self-assembling proteins we call Tintinnidorins. doi.org/10.1038/s414... #protistsonsky 1/3

Swimming tintinnid ciliate in its transparent showing the shell-material granules containing the Tintinnidorin proteins accumulated around the circular zone of membranelles of the newly developing cell.

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ISEP @isepprotists.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

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

a complicated figure from the linked paper showing three evolutionary trees and schematic representations of microbial cells showing an evolutionary scenario

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

New preprint about closely-related #methanogens living inside ciliates and animal guts!! We found that ciliate symbionts are functionally indistinct from free-living spp, while gut symbionts have streamlined genomes encoded for scavenging. read on if you're curious why 🤔 #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky

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Courtney Stairs @cstairs.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

We stumbled upon an unusual gene called 'rqua' in the genome of some freshwater sponges. In microbes, this gene confers the ability to make a ubiquinone analog - rhodoquinone - which can help the respiratory chain run without oxygen.

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Enrico Sandro Colizzi @escolizzi.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

How common is multicellularity in bacteria? And archaea? And how does it evolve? We wrote a short review "On the architecture and evolution of prokaryotic multicellularity". Preprint link: bit.ly/4ta06Gq Sharing and comments are much appreciated. 1/4

An overview of bacterial multicellular formations: biofilms, filaments, free-floating aggregates, motile collectives and fruiting bodies. For each form, we mention an analogous eukaryotic multicellular form (respectively animal epitelia, filaments in fungi, Volvox, Dictyostelium/social animals, Dictyostelium and other slime moulds)

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

New paper alert!

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Luciana Santoferrara @lusantof.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Our new article on #protist global distributions combining the #Mixoplankton and #metaPR2 databases with newly revised functional annotations. rdcu.be/fanlx

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

receiving the onion in print each month brings me a lot of joy, this is a true steal

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more mr. nice guy @juniorhoncho.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

love when there's an article about how life is sustainable in the superheated waters surrounding a hydrothermal volcanic fissure on the ocean floor and then like six paragraphs in you find out the author's parents are chemosynthetic bacteria 🙄

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Courtney Stairs @cstairs.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Check out our latest pre-print of our favourite pets - the breviates. This work was led by Zhezhen Yi in collaboration with @andrewjroger.bsky.social and many others! By studying diverse breviates we were able to see how different metabolic pathways can evolved in response to low-oxygen.

biorxiv.org

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STCmicrobeblog @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

glad so many of you *like* the 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘺𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 having lunch 🙂 but don't miss the recent work of beryl rapaport et al. on another amoeba, 🔥 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 🔥dancing at 63°C on STC 👉 smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...

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Courtney Stairs @cstairs.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The day is finally here!! On behalf of all the co-organizers the Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes website is open. comparativegenomics2026.com Invited speakers will be added to the website in the coming weeks. Watch this (well, that^) space!

comparativegenomics2026.com

CGUE 2026 – Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes 2026. San Feliu, Spain. 5-10 October

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500 Women Scientists @500womensci.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

The villains in this story are us...complicity is shared, whether we voted for the US administration that is responsible for this wave of violence or [not] ... its up to us to stop it & spend the rest of our lives making amends to the rest of the world. 500womenscientists.org/updates/2026...

500womenscientists.org

What we owe to ourselves and each other — 500 Women Scientists

Photo by Victor G on Unsplash In the 1st two weeks of 2026, we have seen the US government kidnap and kill people on US soil and abroad. Even in the US's sorted and dark history of imperialism an...

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Sergio Muñoz-Gómez @sergiophyceae.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

End-of-year preprint dump! A collaboration with @messorensen.bsky.social and German and Korean colleagues: "The phylogenetic context for the origin of a unique purple-green photosymbiosis " doi.org/10.64898/202...

P. tenue, its symbionts, and natural habitat

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known" - Bertrand Russell, 1976. Time-lapse video of Vampyrella lateritia eating Spirogyra algae from Science Source/Oliver Skibbe. 🦠

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Fabien Burki @fburki.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Just on time for the holidays! Happy to share the published version of the discovery of leptophytes, a new deep-branching and widespread group of microalgae based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs). Now with additional support from a mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG) of leptophytes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Identification of a deep-branching lineage of algae using environmental plastid genomes - Nature Communications

Here, the authors leverage data from the Tara Oceans expeditions to perform a phylogeny-guided plastid genome-resolved metagenomic survey and provide 660 non-redundant plastid genomes from marine alga...

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Holly Bik @hollybik.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Announcing our next #NSFfunded workshop on "Telling Stories Through Data", co-lead by myself + @vgwschutte.bsky.social! It’s half bioinformatics data viz & half #SciComm - this year’s focus is host-associated microbiome datasets. Apply here to join us (form closes 1/10) bit.ly/TSTD2026 #symbiosky

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Holly Bik @hollybik.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

So excited to see this preprint out!! There is so much gold hiding in public eDNA studies, just waiting for taxon-focused investigations to pull out stories like this. Congrats on a great analysis @annaschreck.bsky.social @symbiosisrox.bsky.social

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Daan Speth @daanspeth.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Respiratory endosymbionts, that allow their ciliate hosts to breathe nitrate instead of (or in addition to) oxygen are frequent members of the wastewater microbiome. 🦠 🖥️🧬 Great to see this work by @louison-nicolas.bsky.social published in ISME coummuncations! doi.org/10.1093/isme...

doi.org

Validate User

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Check out our preprint!! So many cool analyses you can do with public rDNA datasets. Especially if you work with understudied groups or habitats! #ProtistsOnSky

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ISME - International Society for Microbial Ecology @isme-microbes.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Microbes can store “memories” by collectively altering their environment. These externalized “memories” impact how microbial communities assemble. isme-microbes.org/bacterial-me... #MicrobeMemory #MicrobialEcology

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Aaron Ragsdale @apragsdale.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Wisconsin Evolution is accepting applications for our Seminar Series' Early Career Scientist Award. Come share your evolution research and visit UW-Madison's evolution community. Open to grad students and postdocs (<5 yrs post PhD) from outside UW-Madison. Apply by Dec 15th here: shorturl.at/4a4O6

urldefense.com

Early Career Scientist Awards 2026

Application to the UW-Madison Evolution Seminar Series - Early Career Scientist Awards.

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Scott Coyle @cellraiser.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926

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Nicole Dubilier @nicoledubilier.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

And vice versa, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria are masters of colonizing marine hosts! This was a wonderful collaboration with Sam Vohsen, Eslam Osman, Mandy Joye, Matt Saxton, grubervodicka.bsky.social, @ibaums.bsky.social

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Fabien Burki @fburki.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, exciting microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more. #protistsonsky 1/2

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Jon Puritz @jonpuritz.marineevoeco.com · 10/11/2025

Job Opening **ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARINE ECOLOGY**, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island. jobs.uri.edu/postings/15960

Job Opening **ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARINE ECOLOGY**, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island.

The Department of Biological Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences (CELS) at the University of Rhode Island (URI) invites applications for an academic year (9 month), tenure-track Assistant Professor position specializing in Marine Ecology. URI, the top public university in New England, is a land and sea grant research university located in Kingston, Rhode Island, a beautiful seaside community that is well connected by car, bus, and rail about 40 min from Providence, an hour from Boston and 3 hours from New York City.

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

This past Thursday I successfully defended my dissertation! Thank you @symbiosisrox.bsky.social and the rest of the lab for making it a super fun celebration! I dressed up my son as a #ciliate for the occasion and we jumped into Narragansett Bay at @urigso.bsky.social beach afterwards #ProtistsOnSky

The Beinart lab plus friends pose in front of chilly Narragansett Bay after their inaugural post defense polar plunge

Dr. Anna and her adorable son dressed as a ciliate wave goodbye to the zoom participants of her defense talk

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

This is a long shot but does anyone know how to pronounce Epalxellidae?? 😂 #ProtistsOnSky

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URI Graduate School of Oceanography @urigso.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

🎃 👻 Happy Halloween! Last-minute costume idea: giant tubeworm. 🦑 🌊

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Johana Rotterova @micrott.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

New paper out! 💌🔬Spirorhynchus verrucosus is a Muranotrichean and its sister has been livin' in the deep sea Santa Barbara Basin since the 90's! See them TUFTS!! Wonderful work of B Bourland & Cepicka Lab, R Beinart, & J Bernhard enabling deep sea sampling. Read h1.nu/spiror #ProtistsOnSky #MicroSky

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URI Graduate School of Oceanography @urigso.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

✨🌊 The ones who get it, get it. ⬇️ 💭 What are we missing? #URIGSO

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

I am defending my dissertation titled "Ecology and evolution of anaerobic ciliate methanogen symbioses in marine oxygen depleted environments" on Nov 6 at 9:30 am EST! Message me for the zoom link if you are interested in joining! (Or join in person at beautiful URI GSO) #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky

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STCmicrobeblog @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

#SymbioSky #MicroSky #ProtistsOnSky the plot thickens 👇 as we all suspected and feared(?), organellogenesis is not straightforward, but rather, well,... a thicket ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Figure 7. Graphical representation of the key events that lead to plastid organellogenesis. Novel features identified in Sinophysis are highlighted below the well-studied features.
source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.07.680570v1

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Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Love #protists? Then you'd love this! Beautiful collection of hand-drawn critters represented here at the Oxford-Japan symposium on ethological dynamics in diorama environments sites.google.com/view/oxford-... #ciliates #testateamoeba #diatoms

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American Society for Cell Biology @ascbiology.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

From MBoC: Wallace F. Marshall (UCSF) and team profile the giant ciliate Stentor pyriformis—symbiotic algae in microtubule baskets, symbiont-dependent phototaxis, and a standard genetic code. Paper: www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/... #CellBiology

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Elizabeth Beston @elizabethbeston.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

What a lovely find! I adore that I’m always seeing new things, even after 3 years of looking at plankton. This is a ciliate from the family Folliculinidae (thanks for the ID @microbe_guru !). I adore its colour! #marineplankton 🦑

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

We're hiring for several positions (a post-bac researcher in #transcriptomics, a #phage #postdoc, a senior researcher (broad topics) and a graduate student to work on #ciliates) - find info here: www.marine.usf.edu/genomics/app...

marine.usf.edu

Apply - Genomics

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Dr. Michelle Hauer @michelle-hauer.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

New publication out!

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Dr. Roxanne Beinart @symbiosisrox.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

I had such a great time doing this podcast! Thanks @markowenmartin.bsky.social for the chance to talk about snails and their microbial friends.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

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Scripps Institution of Oceanography @scrippsocean.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Propaganda we're not falling for: 🦈Sharks are scary (amazing creatures, important for the ecosystem) 🌊Benthic invertebrates aren’t cute (they are precious) 🪨Geology is boring (rocks ROCK) 📈Long-term data sets aren't important (they are SO important!) 🔬Science isn’t cool (science rules, obviously)

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

RFK Jr. says the top scientific journals are “corrupt”. Yet his MAHA disinformation report includes fake references and grossly false statements. Reviewers and editors at any of these journals would have caught these, resulting in its wholesale rejection. Don’t give an inch to this charlatan.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 28/05/2025

🎺🚨👀 WATCH TODAY: over 200 climate scientists and meteorologists (including NOAA and NASA veterans) are hosting a 100-hour livestream starting **today at 1 PM ET**, exploring how DOGE is impacting weather & climate science. Trailer: youtu.be/-Go-RCg3AjI Watch: wclivestream.com/watch

youtu.be

Weather and climate science needs your help

YouTube video by The Weather & Climate Livestream

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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

An open letter highlighting the co-optation of open science language in the latest Executive Order to justify policies that are, in fact, antithetical to open science principles. Read and consider signing with your support. www.standupforscience.net/open-letter-...

standupforscience.net

Open Letter in Support of Science — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE

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Anna Schrecengost @annaschreck.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Question for #protistsonsky #SymbioSky: what are examples of prokaryotic genera which form mutualistic symbioses with both animals and free-living protists? i know about methanogenic endosymbionts of protists/animals, and examples of pathogenic microbes e.g. with amoeba, looking for more examples!

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