Yesterday Lo and I achieved what can only be described as the pinnacle of my graduate student career: The Cannonball Clam Run. 5 am flight Boston to Florida, drove to my field site, collected live clams, returned the car and boarded a 9 pm flight home. Clams in the lab by midnight
Just gonna leave this here….
That’s a wrap for #AsgardArchaea expedition, w/ @archaeal.bsky.social fr @texasscience.bsky.social! In the coming months and years, this research will likely open the door to new medical breakthroughs and unlock answers to questions about the origins of complex life.
youtu.be/mgmEh_qag5E?...
Stoked to be back aboard R/V Falkor(too), this time as part of a team led by @archaeal.bsky.social to search for Asgard archaea, our closest microbial ancestors! Follow @schmidtocean.bsky.social for updates on when to tune in to our dive livestreams - lotta push cores ❤️❤️❤️
#asgardarchaea
Happy to share our new paper led by Corinna Breusing about how the Hunga volcanic eruption's decimation of nearby hydrothermal vent snails and mussels led to a significant reduction in the genomic diversity of their bacterial symbionts.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Absolutely critical component of a the best micheladas 🍺
Heading home from another great excursion to Nilpena Ediacara National Park. Although a bit removed from the canon of my dissertation, I’m stoked to keep coming back to my home away from home to keep studying some of earth’s first animals!
Back home from an excellent two weeks sampling lucinids in Curaçao! Many thanks to CARMABI for hosting us, and I’m stoked to have another southern Caribbean site for this Codakia biogeography project!
The second was led by Dr. Corinna Breusing with coauthors Michelle Hauer, @chemosymbiosis.bsky.social Johann Becker, Brennan Phillips, and @pgirguis.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
And I’d just like to end with a huge huge thank you to Kaustuv Roy at UCSD who took me into the lab as a starry eyed freshman and, along with Alex Neu, turned me into a molecular biologist and set me on my path of studying marine symbioses!!!
Finally, although California spiny lobster populations appear outwardly healthy, we found quite a few amplicons assigned to groups with well known lobster pathogens. Although this isn’t specifically cause for alarm, we do think it’s worth examining in more detail.
For this paper, we collected lobsters from San Diego Co., and examined the microbes associated with internal and external tissues using a 16s Amplicon approach. As you might expect, we found that each tissue hosted a diverse but distinct suite of microbial taxa!
First got started on this baby Pre COVID, and it finally made it over the hump! The external and internal microbiomes of lobster species are well known to influence host health and functioning, but surprisingly, the microbiome of the California spiny lobster has (until now!) remained unexplored.
Super stoked to have the paper from my undergrad honors thesis at UCSD/SIO on the microbiome of California spiny lobster finally out in the most recent issue of Journal of Shellfish Research! bioone.org/journals/jou...
Kicked off the new year in Grand Cayman collecting lucinid clams from some lovely Thalassia beds! It was great to escape the New England cold for a bit and I’m really excited to have another datapoint in my lucinid biogeography project. #seagrass #thalassia #molluscs
The piece does a great job contextualizing Uncus and the evolution of animals into the Ediacaran/Cambrian boundary!
I’m excited to share a Dispatch out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social by our colleague Dr. Alex Liu from the University of Cambridge discussing our recent discovery of Uncus dzaugisi, the first Ediacaran ecdysozoan body fossil!
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
Wishing a very merry #ThalassiaThursday to all those who celebrate. As the first snow of the season hits Boston, I’m looking forward to some upcoming trips down to the Caribbean this winter to collect symbiotic lucinid clams!
The morphology and movement of Uncus is consistent with modern day Nematoida, and demonstrates a striking depth of relief, consistent with a rigid outer membrane
Here, we describe Uncus dzaugisi from the Ediacaran of South Australia. This vermiform, non-modular bilaterian was curved to sinuous in shape, and moved through the microbial mat with a distinct sinusoidal pattern.
Ecdysozoa is the most species rich animal super phylum, and despite a rich fossil record of clades like arthropods, the origins of this group have historically remained elusive.
I’m pumped to share my latest paper out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @marydroser.bsky.social and Prof. Scott Evans describing the first Ediacaran ecdysozoan body fossil! authors.elsevier.com/a/1k7J73QW8S... (free vía this link!)
This new taxon is macroscopic, motile, and bilaterally symmetrical, yet it consistently demonstrates an asymmetric “question mark” shape in all specimens, demonstrating the oldest example of metazoan-grade chirality!
Just wanted to share some of our recent Ediacaran research led by Prof. Scott Evans at FSU! In this paper, we describe an enigmatic new species, Quaestio simpsonorum. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
In addition to modern organism research, I also moonlight as an Ediacaran paleontologist, working on the first complex life on earth. Outside of science, I love fly fishing, thru hiking, climbing and other outdoor activities.
In a true Girguis lab fashion, my work combines experiments with various ‘omics approaches.
Hi all! For a brief intro, my name is Ian and I’m a PhD student in the Girguis lab in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. I’m a SoCal native and UCSD/SIO grad. Throughout my dissertation, I’m keen to study the evolution and ecological impacts of chemosynthetic symbioses in mollusks.
