illustration of five different microbial cells and some of the chemicals they exchange with their environment
New #ISEPpapers by @ankarn.bsky.social et al.! Living together: evolutionary and ecological dimensions of #protist endosymbiosis academic.oup.com/microlife/ar...
#Protists #Microbes #Symbiosis #Evolution
12 scientists smiling after a successful conference
What an amazing conference! Is there anything better than spending 4 days talking about soil with fantastic soil researchers? Until next time #GSB2026!!
I loved your protist genome talk, too! It was so nice to meet another researcher passionate about the importance of characterizing soil protist genomes (even though they are quite complex to assemble)!
Hey #GSB2026! Want to hear about soil protists? Want to learn more about long-read sequencing and assembling protist genomes? My talk tomorrow morning in the "Technological, Methodological, and Omics Advances - II" session will highlight some recent advancements in these realms 🦠🧬
Two scientists with big smiles are standing by a scientific poster that is colored bright pink.
Undergraduate researcher extraordinaire @melpaige05.bsky.social presented some of her recent findings on the role of temperature for the three life stages of a Heterolobosean protist (Fumarolamoeba sp.) today! Melanie's passion for pink posters and characterizing this amoeba is inspiring 💓🦠
Help! We're struggling to choose between these two images of #Mesodinium #karmachamaeleon and its cryptophyte prey, one more "documentary" and one more "action shot," as cover image submissions (to a society journal). If you were an editor, which one would more likely catch your eye? #protistsonsky
Mycelial networks doing their "carbon" magic in soils!
I am grateful to my awesome collaborators for their support and guidance from study design to manuscript submission! One small step for scientists, one giant leap for gopher tortoises!! 🐢
Sign saying "tortoise crossing". Photo was taken during fieldwork at Ordway Swisher Biological Station.
This project has a very special place in my heart as a Florida native who grew up with gopher tortoises often visiting and making burrows in my backyard.
A spread of soils collected during the experiment. The soils are varying in color and texture.
We were excited to dive into these complicated results! Specifically, in line with the "Habitat Heterogeneity Hypothesis", we observe that gopher tortoise activity likely enhances niche opportunities for soil organisms by increasing environmental heterogeneity - regardless of habitat quality!
picture of gopher tortoise burrows in a) longleaf pine savanna and b) improved pasture
Because of the decrease of land coverage of longleaf pine savanna across the southeastern US, we were also curious if the effect of gopher tortoise activities, burrowing and foraging, on below ground organisms were similar between sites with different anthropogenic histories.
A gopher tortoise in the grasses beneath a longleaf pine savanna overstory
While the role of gopher tortoise burrowing has been shown to create an essential habitat for over 350 aboveground species, their effect on soil organisms was largely unknown!
Hot off the press! If you’ve ever wondered how ecosystem-engineering gopher tortoises shape soil microbial and nematode communities, this paper is for you! 🐢💚
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Macro photo of a brown stink bug in face view on a leaf, guarding a tightly-clustered bunch of eggs that are shaped and colored exactly like a full tray of dark beer with foam on top.
Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.
Soil Critters: Illuminating a Hidden World
Have you visited Frank Ashwood's website? We are obsessed with these photos! 🐜🐞https://www.frankashwood.com/macrophotography @frankashwood.bsky.social
Can you ID this species in the comments?
Send us your own photos to feature in our newsletter.
Time lapse of an odd little monster. Presumably some kind of cercozoan from brackish water. #protistsonsky
A poem I wrote while doing fieldwork at high-elevation ecosystems (@rmblscience.bsky.social) is now published online by Poets for Science!
poetsforscience.org/sub-alpine-o...
And finally all at SyracuseU - @shaharsu.bsky.social @jessniblo.bsky.social for protein analyses, @rmshepherd.bsky.social for culturing, & @oliverio.bsky.social for leading this effort with me!
So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth!
#protistsonsky 🧵
🚨Check out the first blog of our GSB4 ECR series!🚨
Dr. Sabrina Sadiq discusses the path to discovering a vast diversity of viruses in Australian soils, and why we must know more!
📢Be sure to check out the talk at the #GSB4 conference in April!
www.globalsoilbiodiversity.org/blog-beneath...
Oh hey congratulations @oliverio.bsky.social @rmshepherd.bsky.social @hbrappap.bsky.social on the awesome thermophilic amoeba story!
A Novel Protistan Trait Database Reveals Functional Redundancy and Complementarity in Terrestrial Protists(Amoebozoa and Rhizaria)
#protists #eukaryotes #amoeba
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
📣🪱 New Paper Alert: Novel tools for characterizing soil eukaryomes using NEON data 🪱📣
Open Access: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
A mural designed by members of sci:moers under the artistic direction of urban artist cokyone (https://cokyone.myportfolio.com), after the biodiversity analysis in soil done by Dr. Arne Schwelm. The organisms are a Gastrotrichia, Tardigrade, a nematode, a ciliate, a testate amoeba and the fruiting body of a fungus.
We are our best when we collaborate. 🧪🦠🔬🧬🌍🍄
This mural about the invisible #soil #biodiversity in Moers(🇩🇪) resulted from the collaboration between my friend Dr. Arne Schwelm, the people from sci:moers and the Stiftung für Umwelt und Entwicklung under the artistic direction of #cokyone.
Amoebae in culture from nearby SUNY ESF steam vent
Super cool update!! @rmshepherd.bsky.social was able to culture some thermophilic amoebae from our built environment steam vent samples on campus that can happily grow at at least 50C! They are most closely related to Fumarolamoeba (isolated from... yep... fumaroles!) #protistsOnSky #MicroSky
sampling some local @sunyesf.bsky.social built environments (steam vents!) in pursuit of extremophile protists with
@micromaresca.bsky.social and @rmshepherd.bsky.social #MicroSky
#ProtistsOnSky
Happy to share that work led by PhD student
@rmshepherd.bsky.social
is now out in Soil Biology & Biochem: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We sought to shed light on how soil micronutrients (Fe, Zn, Mn ...) regulate belowground microbiomes.
#MicroSky 🦠🧫🧪 #MicrobiomeSky
Hey AGU23! If you’re interested in soil + microbes, I’ll be presenting some of my research at 11am🥼🔬🧬
our lab group decided to go super scary this year for halloween... 😱😱😱 coding error messages we've had recently 😱😱😱
@rmshepherd.bsky.social @nimshika.bsky.social @hbrappap.bsky.social
Smiling through the pain 🥲
