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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

FEMS @femsmicro.org · 21d

For #InternationalMicroorganismDay, we asked our FEMS MICRO 2025 Keynote Speakers and FEMS Journal Editors "'What is your favourite microbe?''

With delightful answers, ranging over many microbes and personal stories, this was the perfect way to celebrate IMD 2025! #MicroSky

youtu.be/oEJsWNJCtBw

Favourite Microbes for International Microorganism Day 2025

YouTube video by FEMS Microbiology

youtu.be

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · 21d

"On this date back in 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek reported the first description of a single-celled organism with his letter to the Royal Society of London."

fems-microbiology.org/internationa...

International Microorganism Day - FEMS

International Microorganism Day (IMD) is an initiative coordinated by FEMS, originally launched by the Portuguese Society for Microbiology (SPM) in 2017. Since then, International Microorganism Day ha...

fems-microbiology.org

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · 21d

Happy International Microorganism Day, to my whole beautiful community! 🧫🔬🧪

FEMS @femsmicro.org · 21d

Happy International Microorganism Day! 🎉

Today, we are celebrating the tiny powerhouses that have a massive impact on our world. From the bacteria in our gut to the fungi that give us antibiotics, these incredible organisms are essential to life.

Let's make some noise for the microscopic!

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán @jerorb.bsky.social · Jul 22

Do plasmids evolve faster 🐇, slower 🐢, or just like chromosomes 🧬?

In our new paper, we tackled this question using theory, simulations, bioinformatics, and experiments!

👇 Check out all the details in Paula’s thread!

Hint: 🐇 (most of the time)

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Alicia Calvo-Villamañán @aliciapcv.bsky.social · Aug 20

This work is finally published! 🥳🧬
Plasmids are associated with very variable fitness costs in their different bacterial hosts. But, what is the contribution of each of the plasmid-genes in these host-specific effects? Study led by
@jorgesastred.bsky.social, @sanmillan.bsky.social and myself! 1/14

Dissecting pOXA-48 fitness effects in clinical Enterobacterales using plasmid-wide CRISPRi screens

Nature Communications - This study investigates the effects of the carbapenem resistance plasmid pOXA-48 in clinical enterobacteria. Using CRISPRi screens, the authors revealed that the...

rdcu.be

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Sep 3

Plasmids can be lost from a bacterial community even under positive environmental selection: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Species interactions determine plasmid persistence in a 3-member bacterial community

Microbial communities are shaped by complex forces, including interspecies interactions and the effects of mobile genetic elements such as plasmids. How these forces interact to affect community respo...

doi.org

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Sep 3

New preprint with my HFSP collaborators. Network structures for bacterial and plasmid interactions determine community structure and evolvability: doi.org/10.32942/X21...

The interplay between ecological networks drives host-plasmid community dynamics

doi.org

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Sep 3

Is the era of microbial metagenomics over? Check out our new preprint on using species abundance distributions to predict plasmid maintenance in bacterial communities: arxiv.org/abs/2509.01695

Heterogeneity drives plasmid maintenance in large microbial communities

Microbiomes are complex systems comprised of many interacting species. Species can survive harsh or changing conditions by rapid adaptation, a process accelerated by the exchange of genetic material b...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · May 6

Everyone in the past was neurotypical, which is how we got things like this single-author, eight-volume encyclopedia of ferns

eight leatherbound books all titled "FERNS" volumes 1 through 8

650 5.3K 34K

Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Seven Years in Quebec @dfeldman.org · Apr 16

It seems Tesla is detecting vehicles that may have problems, and artificially running their odometers faster so the warranty expires before they have to do any service

Just incredible grift

"Tesla Inc. employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage travelled by Tesla vehicles," reads the lawsuit. "In so doing, Defendants can, and do, accelerate the rate of depreciation of the value of Tesla vehicles and also the
expiration of Tesla vehicle warranties to reduce or avoid responsibility for contractually required repairs as well as increase the purchase of its extended warranty policy."

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Apr 16

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Jan 13

Can anyone recommend papers where authors look at pairwise interactions between bacteria within a community context? i.e. interaction strength between strain A and strain B when co-cultured with several/many other strains.

Thanks!

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · Dec 30

Ecological histories govern social exploitation by microorganisms

#ISMEJournal by @evokait.bsky.social et al from Greg Velicer

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Ecological histories govern social exploitation by microorganisms

Abstract. Exploitation is a common feature of social interactions, which can be modified by ecological context. Here we investigate effects of ecological h

academic.oup.com

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Nov 8

I miss it!

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Nov 8

So excited that @relenski.bsky.social is the 2025 Microbiology Society Prize Medalist! What a role model, both for research and as a citizen of science

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · Nov 4

Excited to share: The inaugural Alma Dal Co School on Collective Behavior is coming to Venice (Sep 29-Oct 4, 2025). This unique school honors Alma (1989-2022), whose brilliant work bridging physics and microbiology revealed how metabolic interactions structure microbial communities. 1/12

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Reposted by Kaitlin Schaal

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · Nov 3

This. If you invite 40 people to a 2 hour meeting, or get them to complete 2 hrs of paperwork, you’re effectively ‘spending’ 2 weeks’ worth of productive institutional time…

Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · Nov 3

Higher ed is pretty bad at valuing people's time. This is one manifestation of that.

One thing I wish more administrators would do is use tools like this to calculate the costs of the requests they're making, instead of operating as if time in infinite and free.
hbr.org/2016/01/esti...

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Apr 18

My colleagues and I are excited to announce our lovely new website showcasing the experimental evolution work with Myxococcus xanthus, a social and predatory soil bacterium. It's a great resource for anyone interested in microbial ecology/evolution or social evolution:

www.myxoee.org

MyxoEE

Evolution experiments with myxobacteria – MyxoEEs – have been used to address many evolutionary questions and are summarised at myxoee.org

www.myxoee.org

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Feb 6

Evolution of cooperation: thinking of cheaters as having a "host range" of permissible cooperators for my paper "Allopatric divergence of cooperators confers cheating resistance and limits effects of a defector mutation"

doi.org/10.1186/s128...

Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Feb 6

Check out my new preprint on how resource history impacts cheating and facultative exploitation in Myxococcus xanthus!

Ecological histories determine the success of social exploitation biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

with an AI summary: sciencecast.org/casts/paevzn7t

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