Aldo Arellano 🏳️‍🌈

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨

Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)

Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇

doi.org/10.1093/fems...

Cross-domain metabolic interactions link Methanobrevibacter smithii to colorectal cancer microbial ecosystems www.nature.com/articles/s41...

by @chmoei.bsky.social et al. (including @cdiener.com)

🏳️‍🌈 Do you want to connect with queer microbiologists in your region in real time? Come join our WhatsApp groups! 📱

Email us at prideinmicrobiology@gmail.com for more information.

#Microbiology #PrideinMicrobiology

How specific are heritable symbioses?

And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species?

We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com!

1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plant Pathogens Moonlighting as Beneficial Insect Symbionts Herbivorous insects can shape the epidemiology of disease in plants by vectoring numerous phytopathogens. While the consequences of infection are often well-characterized in the host plant, the extent...

Can plant pathogens boost vector fitness?

Together with @hassansalem.bsky.social, we review how phytopathogens can spread further by moonlighting as insect symbionts 🪲 More on this nifty lifestyle in @annualreviews.bsky.social!

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics?
1) Write NSF
2) Write your Congressperson
3) CC us at grfp@grant-witness.us so we can compile + follow up

Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

Phylosymbiosis and functional redundancy in the Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) gut microbiome and its implications for host fitness Abstract. The gut microbiome plays a fundamental role in host ecophysiology. Numerous studies have examined microbiome composition and functionality to und

academic.oup.com/jinsectscien...

Resurrected nitrogenases recapitulate canonical N-isotope biosignatures over two billion years - Nature Communications The study shows that nitrogenase enzymes have maintained stable isotope signatures over billions of years, revealing how ancient microbes shaped Earth’s nitrogen cycle and offering a new experimental ...

Our new paper, out today! We resurrected ancient nitrogenases first used by life on Earth 3 billion years ago. We combined synthetic biology and geology & validated their chemical #biosignature in rocks that helps reveal ancient life on Earth!(and beyond!)

Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why did only one genus of insects, Halobates, take to the high seas? Oceans cover over 70% of the earth’s surface and house a dizzying array of organisms, including five species of the peppercorn-sized ocean-skater Halobates, which live exclusively at the ocean surface...

I can't overrecommend this incredible paper about water skaters (genus Halobates). No one knows how they evolved. No one knows what they eat. They are superhydrophobic, which means water LITERALLY CANNOT WET THEM. Perhaps we should call them anti-water skaters? 🌊🧪
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Accelerated evolution in networked metapopulations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Centralized migration accelerates adaptation and drives parallel evolution, emphasizing the key influence of spatial organization on evolutionary dynamics across systems from pathogen transmission to ...

Quickening the pace (of evolution). Spatial structure speeds up adaptation to antibiotics. Great work by Partha Chakraborty just out: doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

A number of our students got the following comment back on a rejection for the NSF GFRP. They are in an eligible STEM field. Is this something people in other places are getting too? Is it a quirk or targeted?

A pile of valentines, including a gulper eel saying "you make my jaw drop", a grimalditeuthis saying "I find you a-LURE-ing" a whale skeleton at the bottom of the ocean with snailfish and two octopuses making heart arms under the words "I've whale-fallen for you", and an anglerfish saying "You're my light in the darkness", and then two packs of cards that are all nice and tied up

Hey cuties. Everything sucks ass. Get some valentines and send them to your friends.

I'm sad. You're sad. They're probably sad.

Send them a valentine.

It keeps Skype a Scientist running, which hey, is very good too.

squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...

Mammals have evolved into ant eaters 12 times since the dinosaur age, study finds Mammals have developed some unusual eating habits over the past 100 million years, but a new study has uncovered the surprising lengths to which some have gone to satisfy one of the more peculiar—a ta...

Tired: Everything evolves to be a crab.

Wired: Everything evolves to eat ants.

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

The published version is out in PRL! doi.org/10.1103/19rh... with a nice writeup from UM - news.umich.edu/to-get-lifel...

check out our new blog post: What’s on the Menu? Not Microcystis, Say Mussels

A study led by #CIGLR w/ NOAA_GLERL
finds that these interactions may fuel cyanobacterial dominance & reveal key stressors shaping freshwater ecosystems.

🔗 Blog: ciglr.seas.umich.edu/menu-notmicr...

I am searching for a lab manager/researcher to come and work with a friendly, collaborative, and interdisciplinary group of students, postdocs, and staff on the microbial ecology of cyanobacterial blooms. careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Viral Dark Matter: Illuminating Protein Function, Ecology, and Biotechnological Promises Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and play central roles in shaping microbiomes and influencing ecosystem functions. Yet, most viral genes remain uncharacterized, comprising w...

Viral "dark matter" dominates the virosphere. In this review by me & @karthik-a.bsky.social, we synthesize what's known, highlight major gaps, and outline paths forward for illuminating viral protein functions in diverse ecosystems.

GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.

Do you teach #rstats? Do your students complain about how lame and old-fashioned dplyr is? Don't worry: I have the solution for you: github.com/hadley/genzp....

genzplyr is dplyr, but bussin fr fr no cap.

Workshop poster

Excited to be at ICTS for the school on Geometry, Mechanics and the Physics of Growth, co-organized with Ganga Prasath (IITM) and @joelmarthelot.bsky.social (Aix-Marseille)! Fantastic start with a lecture on continuum elasticity by @abigailplummer.bsky.social (BU)

A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...

Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸

There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

I am especially happy to share first authorship with an amazing undergraduate mentee in the lab, Journey Prack! We also collaborated on the artwork featured as the graphical abstract to our paper!

We found surprising consistency in the bacterial taxa positively correlated with host fitness regardless of highly disparate life stages and inocula used in our experiments. We highlight Acetobacteraceae and Actinobacteriota, well studied group in insect-microbe symbiosis

We asked:
1) Do parental mosquitoes pass along a repeatable and beneficial community to offspring?
2) Can larvae adaptively shift the microbial community of their rearing environment?
3) Does prior conditioning of bacterial communities by conspecifics enhance fitness in recipient germ-free hosts?

While the pitcher plant system is a great model in which to explore this, we think that "external microbiome curation" may be an underappreciated modality by which hosts with horizontally-acquired and non-specific microbiota may still "select" better symbionts

Host-mediated niche construction of bacterial communities in an aquatic microecosystem Abstract. Microbes coordinate homeostasis in host-associated and environmental ecosystems alike, but the connectivity of these biomes is seldom considered.

Excited to share our new paper out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social. We asked if environmental microbial communities can be adaptively modulated by host species that transiently acquire their symbionts from the environment #SymbioSky #MicrobiomeSky
doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Selection and transmission of the gut microbiome alone can shift mammalian behavior Nature Communications - Here, the authors present evidence that the gut microbiome alone, without changes in the host genome, can shape how animals respond to selection, identifying a bacterium and...

We selected the laziest mouse at each round to inoculate the next batch of germfree mice: over rounds of selection and passaging, behavior shifted without changes to the mouse genome: rdcu.be/eM3rO
🦠🧫

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Such a delight to share our work on the evolution of a cheese rind fungus in @currentbiology.bsky.social.

This is the fantastic PhD work of @nicolasleonlouw.bsky.social and resulted from amazing collaborations, a wedding proposal(!), an undergrad course, & more!

🧵

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation

Penicillium solitum over 8 years in a cheese cave => green-to-white shift

@currentbiology.bsky.social from @benwolfe.bsky.social with @kellerlab.bsky.social

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Environmental Stress Shapes Bacterial Community Structure and Function Through Interactive Abiotic Effects Microbial communities play critical roles in ecosystem functioning across a wide range of environmental conditions. The physiological stress imposed by temperature, pH and resource levels can shape t...

📝 Excited to share our new paper in Molecular Ecology! 📝

We tested how multiple environmental stressors influence plant-associated microbial communities.

🌟 Each stressor mattered on its own, but their interactions often produced very different outcomes.🌟

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