Rowena Hill

Year in industry student Poppy Leslie is presenting her great work on the evolution of wheat-infecting root fungi, check it out at poster 47! 🌾🍄 #CMINorwich26
@earlhaminst.bsky.social @norwichmicro.bsky.social @dsw-isp.bsky.social @mcmullan0.bsky.social

So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).

One hundred unanswered questions on the dispersal ecology of fungi Abstract. Fungi comprise millions of species that play numerous varied roles in Earth’s natural and managed ecosystems, engaging in a multitude of positive

Disperal ecology meets fungi!
It is more than just spores people!

Check this paper led by ECR @sarahcuprewich.bsky.social and Kristin Barbour! Fun collab supported @cu-esiil.bsky.social

One hundred unanswered questions on the dispersal ecology of fungi url: academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Article out about our work on #protists at the Earlham Institute🦠🧬

#protistsonsky
@earlhaminst.bsky.social
@nrpdtp.bsky.social
@norwichmicro.bsky.social

Hi everyone!
The talk I had the chance to give with @fnucleosome.bsky.social last October is now out on Youtube!
If you like evolution, 3D genomics, biodiversity and/or fungi, I think you might like it! 🧬🧪🍄
The submission of this paper has never been that close!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plez...

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

(1/10)

This article is now published! academic.oup.com/nargab/artic...
We’ve added a few new analyses. First off, we show that, while gene presence absence variation (PAV) scales with evolutionary distance in both plants and animals, the base level and rate of accrual are both twice as high in plants.

Genomic and physiological signatures of adaptation in pathogenic fungi - Nature Communications Emerging fungal pathogens have detrimental impacts on crops, animals, and humans, however little is known about their transition to a pathogenic lifestyle. This study demonstrates that the transition ...

What enables a fungus to invade a mammal host? @marco-guerreiro.bsky.social unravels signatures of translation adaptation among pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of Trichosporonales. See more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ecological genomics of saprotrophy to biotrophy transitions in the genus Clitopilus (Fr. ex Rabenh.) P. Kumm. (Agaricales, Entolomataceae) Transitions between saprotrophic and biotrophic lifestyles represent pivotal evolutionary events in fungal ecology; however, the genomic and physiological mechanisms underlying such shifts remain poor...

I'm delighted to inform you that our paper "Ecological genomics of saprotrophy to biotrophy transitions in the genus Clitopilus" was published in IMA Fungus. A long standing collaboration with Zhilin Yuan at RISF, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Hangzhou:

imafungus.pensoft.net/articles.php...

In this review in Fungal Ecology, Håvard Kauserud (@drhyfe.bsky.social) argues that while the ITS region is by far the best DNA (meta)barcoding marker for fungi, we should not use it naively or simplistically doi.org/10.1016/j.fu...

Black and white photo of an actor in the centre of a woodland of tall tree trunks, accompanied by a musician in a long coat playing a violin. Credit: Jack Parris, 2025 Massee Arts Grant awardee. https://www.instagram.com/jackparrisd/

Open for applications: Massee Arts Grant: up to £5000 to support novel arts projects focused on fungi. For artists from all disciplines & all geographic locations who can help us encourage engagement and learning about mycology. Find out more & apply here: www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/massee-arts-...

Mutualistic microbes drive niche expansion yet constrain diversification https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.14.699472v1

Very excited to share this article written with my PhD advisor @hassansalem.bsky.social, highlighting the amazing work on organ remodeling for symbiosis by Nishino et al @fkttkm.bsky.social. A fascinating system to think about!

Why Ambrosia Beetles Keep Only One Fungus: Competitive Asymmetry, Bottleneck Drift, and Eco-Evolutionary Fixation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.18.694882v1

Our raxtax tool for taxonomic classification is published: it is 2.7–100 times faster than competing tools but equally accurate - raxtax has increasing speedups with growing query and reference sequence numbers compared to existing tools: academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

Tell Us Your JGI Portal Stories The JGI Portal teams (IMG, Mycocosm, Phycocosm, Phytozome, and SMC) would love to sit with you (over Zoom) to hear your stories relating to your usage of the portals, your unsupported use cases, and p...

DOE's Office of Science is making a big push into AI, and that includes our work at the @jgi.doe.gov . We want to hear your thoughts (+ and -) on AI-enabled biological data. Consider joining one of our interviews or focus groups by filling out this form!
🧪🧬🦠🖥️ #secmet
jointgeno.me/PortalStorie...

A social card with images of plant based sausages on a lentil based dish and the text "Research Scientist, to work on novel platforms for sustainable myco-food production and precision fermentation. Salary: £37,500 to £40,240, Contract length: 18 months, Apply by 30 November 2025"

⏰ Closing soon! We're looking for a Research Scientist to work on novel platforms for sustainable myco-food production and precision fermentation.

💷 £37,500 to £40,240
🗓️ Apply by 30 November 2025
➡️ buff.ly/WDsrbgl

Congrats and welcome to Norwich! 😊

Another fine outcome of my long-standing collaboration with Zhilin Yuan and Long Peng at RISF in Hangzhou:

Endophytes with mycorrhizal potentials: biological and ecological implications - New Phytologist

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🚨 PhD project offer linked to Fungarium Sequencing Project! Do you like bioinformatics? fungal genomics? historical DNA? check this out 👇
www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/imp...

The Science of Visual Data Communication: What Works - Steven L. Franconeri, Lace M. Padilla, Priti Shah, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Jessica Hullman, 2021 Effectively designed data visualizations allow viewers to use their powerful visual systems to understand patterns in data across science, education, health, an...

I'm surprised I only came across it now, but this review on improving communication in data visualization is excellent.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Image of yeast spotted on an agar plate. Some grow well, others are dying.

We're looking for a PhD student! If you're interested in #fungal #genomics & #TEs, meiotic drive, or pathogens, please consider applying. The project is about toxin/antidote genes in the human fungal pathogen A. fumigatus. uu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

The virulence gene ToxB is both amplified and disrupted by transposons in the wheat pathogen Pyrenophora tritici-repentis ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, https://ror.org/051dzs374 Alberta Grain Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commissio...

Our latest pre-print on TE-mediated tandem duplication of the ToxB effector is now online...still a puzzle for us but we think it is in a Helitron! Together with amazing collaborators, Reem Aboukhaddour and Ryan Gourlie #TE #fungi
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Figure 3 from the paper by Worobeic et al in Fungal Biology (August 2025) showing 10 pictures of fossil microsclerotia of dark septate endophytic fungi.

Fungal fossils tell a story of resilience: research by Worobiec et al. published in #FungalBiology (Aug 2025) traces dark septate endophytic (DSE) microsclerotia from the Eocene to today, revealing long-term plant–fungus associations.
👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Know metagenomics and could spare 2 mins? I'm applying for funding to build a visual repository for metagenomic classification data (not sequence data). To support the application, I have a short 2 minute survey and it would be a big help if you could fill it in: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Poor Quality of Commercial Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Inoculants Used for Agriculture and Home Gardening There is an urgent need to develop microbial inoculants that can consistently improve crop performance as part of efforts to implement sustainable agricultural practices and reduce the environmental ...

New study from @mvanderheijden.bsky.social lab, showing that many commercial mycorrhizal inoculants are snake oil. So important for this data to be published!

Between this, @lizkoziol.bsky.social and Matt Salomon’s work… well I think we make a strong point.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄We’re recruiting!!🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄

I’m looking for two postdocs and a technician to join my group @sheffielduni.bsky.social @sheffieldpps.bsky.social to work with me on my exciting @royalsociety.org Faraday Discovery Fellowship project, details for each post as follows:

Mushroom plots to visualise gain and loss on a phylogenetic tree A tutorial on how to visualise gene gain and loss on a phylogenetic tree

A quick tutorial blog on a method I haven't seen before to plot gene gain/loss from e.g. CAFE5 across a phylogeny - and clearly shows I always have fungi on the mind 🤓🍄
#rstats #ggplot2
rowena-h.github.io/data-visuali...

Genomic signatures underlying functional diversity in root symbiotic fungi

PHD: Based at the Earlham Institute with @neilhall.bsky.social and @rowenahill.bsky.social, and in collaboration with @rbgkew.bsky.social, we're seeking a #PhDstudent interested in #fungal #ecology and evolution to study functional diversity in root #symbiotic fungi.

@aries-dtp.bsky.social

1/ Ever needed to annotate TEs in a fungal genome, but didn't know where to start?

We have released #MycoMobilome, a community-focused non-redundant database of transposable element consensus sequences for the fungal kingdom, constructed from >4,000 fungal genomes!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...