1/8 🔥 New preprint dropped: Dynamic co-existence of bacteriophages and their hosts 🦠 in the Arabidopsis thaliana 🌱 phyllosphere
Work led by the indomitable @sheilaroitman.bsky.social‬
#plantscience #microbiome #holobiont
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Consumption competition by a parasitoid wasp opens a window of survival under intraguild predation Our study reveals a previously overlooked mechanism enabling coexistence under intraguild predation. Using long-term experiments and behavioural tests, we show that consumption rates and aggressive b...

New paper published: aggressive ladybirds, slow-eating lacewings, and parasitoids greedy for resources. #BES #JAE besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Photo of ship at sea with seagulls around it Text reads: Greenpeace will join the next global Sumud Flotilla to help break the siege on Gaza

Greenpeace's ship Arctic Sunrise will join the Global Sumud Flotilla leaving Barcelona on 12 April, to help break the siege on Gaza

1000+ people on 70+ vessels will show the world's solidarity with the people of Gaza, while governments have failed to uphold international law and prevent genocide

Phage receptor prediction from genome sequencing alone. Bacterial receptor (blue) interacting with phage proteins (purple) is shown here

📣Huge preprint 🔔
Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

Global source of cholera & role of phage in controlling evolution/spread of Vibrio cholerae lineages within the current 7th pandemic @nature.com @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @amberbarton.bsky.social @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy #IWD2026 to our FEMS community and to everyone working to advance microbiology across Europe and beyond.

To mark the day, we are sharing reflections from across our community on the FEMS blog buff.ly/TSSQccE

Thank you to all the women in microbiology for the impact you make every day.

New paper showing that bacteria with more genes for cooperation can live in a broader range of habitats and that genes for cooperation are more more likely to be in the accessory genome www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @lauriebelch.bsky.social

🔬 𝐢𝐕𝐨𝐌 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 – 𝐒𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟑: Viromics⁣⁣
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🗓 25 Feb 2026⁣⁣
⏰ 17:00 CET | 11:00 EST | 08:00 PST⁣⁣
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👉 Register for links & updates:⁣⁣
🔗 isvm.org/ivom/%E2%81%...
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#iVoM #VoM2026 #Virology #ECRs #OnlineEvent

The enteric virome, dominated by bacteriophages, can autonomously activate host immune signaling to modulate intestinal metabolic responses @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Back to Madagascar 🇲🇬 for our 2nd phage field season: exploring eco-evolutionary dynamics in rice fields. Aiming to limit sampling to just 1 year of lab + bioinformatics 😅! Great teamwork between Xplain (@phimresearch.bsky.social) and FOFIFA @mariandm.bsky.social #microsky #phagesky #phage #inrae

How does population density affect evolutionary trajectory?

Microbes construct their own niche which in turn reshapes their evolution.

Preprint drop from grad student @noahhoupt.bsky.social whose evolution experiments featured blue/white colonies, 1000 generations, a lab move, and much more!

Emerging advances in prokaryotic transposition: TnPedia as a promising tool TnPedia provides a curated framework for understanding prokaryotic transposable elements (TEs), including general and historical information and basic…

TnPedia provides a curated framework for understanding prokaryotic transposable elements

doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to say this has now been published in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social 🫁🦠 #Phages #Viromics

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

mvif 46 program

It's Friday!
...and a new #MVIF program is out! 🤩

Free registration: cassyni.com/s/mvif-46

Highlights:
🇺🇸 Rebecca L. Knoll
🇯🇵 Akito Sakanaka

Keynote:
🇺🇸 @simrouxvirus.bsky.social

⭐️ Talks:
🇦🇺 @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social
🇨🇦 @erikbakkeren.bsky.social
🇨🇳 Guanxiang Liang

Ecological ubiquity and phylogeny drive nestedness in phages–bacteria networks and shape the bacterial defensome Author summary Viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages, are part of microbial communities and influence the abundance, diversity, and traits of their hosts. In an agriculture-related context, th...

#microsky #phagesky #phage
At last! Great to see this one out: journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Here, we discovered a nested phage-bacteria network despite their high genetic and ecological diversity. Kudos to everyone involved, especially @chloe-feltin.bsky.social !
@phimresearch.bsky.social

"Seasonal enhancement of the viral shunt catalyzes a subsurface oxygen maximum in the Sargasso Sea" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67002-1

Viruses transform microbes, populations, & ecosystems.

In new work jointly led w/@tn-marine-micro.bsky.social + more, we find a link between enhanced viral infection and productivity 50 meters below the surface in the otherwise nutrient limited Sargasso Sea.

a 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ecological ubiquity and phylogeny drive nestedness in phages–bacteria networks and shape the bacterial defensome Author summary Viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages, are part of microbial communities and influence the abundance, diversity, and traits of their hosts. In an agriculture-related context, th...

#microsky #phagesky #phage
At last! Great to see this one out: journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Here, we discovered a nested phage-bacteria network despite their high genetic and ecological diversity. Kudos to everyone involved, especially @chloe-feltin.bsky.social !
@phimresearch.bsky.social

Differential translocation of bacteriophages across the intestinal barrier in health and Crohn’s disease Intestinal barrier integrity is crucial for gut homeostasis. Douadi et al. show that bacteriophages can cross this barrier without causing damage and that translocation rates depend on the barrier sta...

🚨 New paper from our lab in Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social, led by Clara Douadi!
We show that bacteriophages can cross the intestinal barrier, with increased translocation in Crohn's disease.
🔗 www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Many thanks to all the authors!

A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees - Nature Microbiome analyses of living trees show that a single tree can host approximately one trillion bacteria, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood and with minim...

#microsky #microbiomesky

The #microbiome of living trees! How cool!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check our new perspective paper exploring how the seed holobiont goes to sleep 😴 and reactivate for germination.
A lot of exciting research to be done to understand dormancy mechanisms in microbes and plants ☘️
@emersys-irhs.bsky.social @irhs-angers.bsky.social

Virome Analysis Viruses are omnipresent and the most abundant biological entities on the planet. They play a critical role in shaping the ecology and evolution of all life forms. This chapter provides methods to perf...

I'm proud to share the latest methods work from my group. Led by @revathykri.bsky.social we wrote a book chapter on how we process and analyse viromes.

Thanks to co-authors @rikhaagmans.bsky.social @ryancook94.bsky.social & Alise Ponsero

link.springer.com/protocol/10....

Graphic representation of the recombination events in the Sugarlandvirus I and J variants. Top left: Representation of the variants isolates in the different strains in the three lines. Genome fragments of each parent are represented in a different color. Regions with the most abundant recombination events are marked and associated with a schematic representation of the functional annotation and intergenomic similarity between the two parental phages. Bottom left: 3D folding of the RBPγ. The consensus recombinant region, which is associated with the infection of the K-type 47, is represented in light orange. Variable positions detected in the protein sequence alignment of the variants are represented as hot pink spheres. The table indicates the percentage of identity of the parental protein sequences in three protein regions limited by the amino acids indicated. Right: Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of Klebsiella myoviruses artificially coloured, showing their characteristic contractile tails and icosahedral capsids. Image acquired by the Environmental and Biomedical Virology group (Institute for Integrative Systems Biology, Universitat de València-CSIC).

Capsule diversity limits #phage host range by affecting receptor-binding protein (RBP) interactions in capsulated #bacteria. @pilardomingoc.bsky.social &co show that generalist phages evolve host range via RBP mutation & recombination, but specialists remain stable @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/48nvOqY

Nice looking Jacques Monod conferences next year #1: Ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions in a changing world (chaired by Oliver Kaltz and @bkoskella.bsky.social) cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en/conferenc...

Greetings from Nancy after an amazing #Phages.fr 2025 meeting! Xanthomonas phage folks from @phimresearch.bsky.social + Fernando Clavijo on Ralstonia phages!

Interested in doing a PhD in phage biology? See below a super cool project on megaphage ecology and evolution available at the University of Jyväskylä (FIN) in Elina Laanto's lab (Project no. 4). Co-supervision provided by yours truly.

L’Europe autorise son premier additif phagique 🧫🐔 ! Une avancée pour limiter les antibiotiques… mais vigilance : l’histoire pourrait se répéter. #phages #OneHealth @phimresearch.bsky.social @inrae-dpt-spe.bsky.social @sfp-france.bsky.social
www.jle.com/fr/revues/vi...

JOB OFFER #PhageSky

We have a postdoc position opening in my group to investigate phage-MGE interactions !

We're based in the very nice city of Lyon, France @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social

Contact me for more info !

>> Apply on the CNRS webpage emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

Ecological constraints foster both extreme viral-host lineage stability and mobile element diversity in a marine community Phages are typically viewed as very rapidly evolving biological entities. Little is known, however, about whether and how phages can establish long-term genetic stability. We addressed this eco-evolut...

Phages evolve fast, or do they?
In oysters, some stay identical for years.
With >1,200 phages & 600 Vibrio genomes, we reveal long-term stability and new mobile elements.
Proud of this collaborative work across our teams (Roscoff-UdeM and @epcrocha.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

For those of you working on tailed #phages, this is the virus realm for you!
#Duplodnaviria #virus #taxonomy

The Profile in #JGenVirol provides the citable reference. More details in the chapter on the ICTV website: ictv.global/report/chapt...