I'm super excited that our photo of Xylaria was selected for the cover of the August issue of #mSystems! journals.asm.org/toc/msystems...

This complements our recent article on the secondary metabolism of xylarialean fungi (Franco et al., 2025 vol. 10, e00468-25). @ernestofranco.bsky.social

Excited to have our paper out in #mSystems. Pairwise co-cultures of only 7 xylarialean strains yielded >6k unique metabolites vs. 2k from monocultures. High richness reflects an abundance of interaction-specific metabolites. Work led by @ernestofranco.bsky.social
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Our new preprint is out! A genomic and metagenomic dive into the diversity of microbial carbonic anhydrases. Huge thanks to the amazing team who made this possible!
@you-wren.bsky.social @laurameredith.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our review is out in Nature Reviews Genetics! rdcu.be/d5AY2

We show how phylogeny-based methods can resolve the problem of non-independence in genomic datasets.

These methods must be considered an essential part of the comparative genomics toolkit.

@lauriebelch.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social

Competitor identity and ecology have a considerable impact on secondary metabolite production, highlighting the key role of competition in shaping metabolic diversity.

The immense abundance of unidentified features evidences the vast chemical diversity within Xylariaceae yet to be characterized.

The co-culture of seven ecologically and genetically diverse Xylarialean strains in all 21 pairwise combinations generated over 9k features, with co-cultures producing substantially more compounds than monocultures.

Building on our previous comparative genomics research (doi.org/10.1111/nph....), we used untargeted metabolomics to test the hypothesis that ecological interactions drive secondary metabolism in Xylarialean fungi.

Excited to share our latest preprint! 'Hyperdiverse, bioactive, and interaction-specific metabolites produced only in co-culture suggest diverse competitors may fuel secondary metabolism of xylarialean fungi'. Deeply grateful to the U'Ren Lab @you-wren.bsky.social and JGI team.
tinyurl.com/u32xdpx9

The co-culture of seven ecologically and genetically diverse Xylarialean strains in all 21 pairwise combinations generated over 9k features, with co-cultures producing substantially more compounds than monocultures.

Building on our previous comparative genomics research (doi.org/10.1111/nph....), we used untargeted metabolomics to test the hypothesis that ecological interactions drive secondary metabolism in Xylarialean fungi.