1/25 New paper out in PNAS! We show that the fitness costs of reproductive specialization, where somatic cells give up reproduction, scale inversely with organism size. Larger organisms can afford far more soma, removing a key barrier to multicellular complexity.
Now out in AEM @asm.org! 🎉🧪
*High school student-isolated mutants 👉🏻 novel genetic causes of biofilm-associated adaptations
*We learn how diversity arises quickly and is maintained
*EvolvingSTEM enables scalable research in classrooms & promotes scientific literacy
journals.asm.org/eprint/FBU9M...
An overview of bacterial multicellular formations: biofilms, filaments, free-floating aggregates, motile collectives and fruiting bodies. For each form, we mention an analogous eukaryotic multicellular form (respectively animal epitelia, filaments in fungi, Volvox, Dictyostelium/social animals, Dictyostelium and other slime moulds)
How common is multicellularity in bacteria? And archaea?
And how does it evolve?
We wrote a short review "On the architecture and evolution of prokaryotic multicellularity".
Preprint link: bit.ly/4ta06Gq
Sharing and comments are much appreciated.
1/4
Given that clonal biofilms of single bacterial species rapidly diversify into niche specialists, how do biofilms of multiple species evolve?
A 🧵 featuring new collaborative pubs:
1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
2. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).
A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)
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...
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...
New paper by Saskia Wilmsen and me just came out BioEssays:
A new classification framework to understand evolutionary transitions in individuality
Please find the OA paper here:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
This is a beautiful paper examining the molecular genetics of facultative multicellularity in a marine black yeast.
I also love that they figure out the ecological context for the behavior (MC form when in sponges, where there are nutrients, & uni when starving!).
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Very cool paper by Jyotsna Kalathera et al. from @iamsamayp.bsky.social 's-lab on
Bottleneck size drives the evolution of
cooperative traits in an aggregative multicellular
myxobacterium
just out @plosbiology.org
Congratulations to all coauthors.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Cooperation is a universal feature of complex systems, from the origins of life and microbiomes to societies. What universal patterns can be found in these systems? Here's our new @pnas.org paper. @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....
in 2013, Elio was so fascinated by the 'heterologous multicellularity' of 𝘊𝘩𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘮 that he chose a cross-section to celebrate STC's 10th anniversary 🙂
👉 smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
#MicroSky
🚨 What if evolution is the ”law”… and networks are the machines that do the work?
In this paper (just published) I try to formalize how living systems are non-equilibrium, information-processing, adaptive matter. With a great biological flavor! 🧪🌐🌍🧬🦠
👉 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
🧵 1/
How do simple cells make complex patterns? We discovered a key piece in cyanobacteria—an ancient enzyme repurposed to activate a pattern-forming signal. A conserved signaling strategy, showing how nature reuses tools to build multicellularity. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
The 2026 Guarda Summer Course in Evolutionary Biology is now accepting applications. Amazing place, amazing course, amazing opportunity for early grad students.
tb.ethz.ch/education/gu...
1/28 New preprint up, which I think is the best theoretical idea I've ever had. We asked a simple question: what are the costs of investment into non-reproductive somatic cells? Turns out these costs decrease with the *logarithm* of organism size!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I am very excited to announce that a fully funded PhD position is available in my group.
Topic: Synergistic coevolution in mono-specific and multi-species microbial consortia
Please RT or forward this information to interested candidates.
Deadline: 11.01.26
More info:
shorturl.at/f1TuF
Very proud that @gauravathreya.bsky.social's brilliant work based on his Master's thesis is out as his first paper in @asn-amnat.bsky.social. Interested in host-symbiont interdependence, eukaryogenesis, evolutionary transitions in individuality, and some great theory to back it?...check out the🧵👇
One of the most exciting discoveries from our lab so far is now online as a preprint!
Read a story on how the ParMR and Min systems started to collaborate to create the CorMR cytoskeleton, which now controls cell shape in multicellular cyanobacteria:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How does agency change as life evolves from single cells to complex bodies? This review by Stuart Newman and colleagues examines the surprising roles of development, microbes, and even cancer in reshaping what organisms can do. @multicellgenome.bsky.social www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. 🧪🔬
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
We loved hearing @khammerschmidt.bsky.social talk about evolution at the #MultiBac2025 conference this January - check out the @asm.org report on the origins of early microbial life!
Happy to have been part of EVOLUTION & MECHANISMS GOVERNING MULTICELLULARITY—one of 3 workshops behind @asm.org’s new report. Big questions, great conversations—looking back on origins of microbial life and what lies ahead. Highly recommended read: asm.org/reports/earl...
#MicroSky #MEvoSky #EvoSky
iron toxicity model
New preprint: eukaryotic origins! 🥁
We propose that iron -not oxygen- may have delayed the rise of complex life. Our model reframes the “oxygen delay” puzzle: the gap between atmospheric O2 and early eukaryotic fossils may reflect iron-mediated stress, not for O2:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Abstract submission extended to 1 July – Submit your work now!
Kimberly Chen, a former postdoc in my lab, has published a new article in Genome Biology and Evolution. Selection on mixed populations of Chlamydomonas resulted in the evolution of multicellular structures, all from 2 of 10 founder strains. www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-...
doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...
This is still open for another week or so! Please apply :)
#multicellularity lovers: the website for the EMBO workshop in multicellularity is live. Barcelona is waiting for you! #protistsonsky
