Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Graeme Nicol @graemenicol.bsky.social · 29d

📢 We are thrilled to announce the International Soil Virus Conference 2026 in conjunction with the Saint Loup Research Institute.
🗓️ June 16 – 18, 2026
📍 Château de Saint Loup sur Thouet, France
👇 RSVP by October 31st, 2025
#virus #phage #ISVC2026

ISVC2026

International Soil Virus Conference 2026! We are excited to announce and provide RSVP details for the next International Soil Virus Conference that will be held in Saint-Loup Lamaire, France on Jun…

soilmicrobes.fr

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Soil Microbial Ecology Group @soilmicrobes.bsky.social · Aug 23

Hot off the press! 📣
We demonstrate that soil physicochemical gradients alter virus community structure but not the presence of those infecting individual (cultivated) bacteria hosts 🦠🧫
@Sungeun Lee @graemenicol.bsky.social @christinahazard.bsky.social

Soil pH influences the composition of bacteriophage communities infecting individual hosts

Bacteriophages (phages) are predicted to infect a range of hosts in highly diverse soil bacterial communities. However, selection of host communities …

www.sciencedirect.com

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Graeme Nicol @graemenicol.bsky.social · Apr 23

Two Nature papers last year. I think you’re entitled to a 113th game at least 😜

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Graeme Nicol @graemenicol.bsky.social · Apr 22

Potential PhD opportunity studying soil virus ecology in our group. Please get in touch if interested!

Soil Microbial Ecology Group @soilmicrobes.bsky.social · Apr 21

📣 PhD Scholarship Funding Opportunity!

Interested in pursuing a PhD in soil virus ecology and biogeochemical cycling? 🦠

Have a Masters degree from abroad and ranked in the top 20% of your class? 🎓

Get in touch now! See our website for further details. Submission deadline in August.

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Gareth (Gary) Trubl @gtrubl.bsky.social · Mar 25

Our paper is out and is open access!

Phosphate amendment drives bloom of RNA viruses after soil wet-up.

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

@sieravirus.bsky.social @jeffinerca.bsky.social @graemenicol.bsky.social @christinahazard.bsky.social

Phosphate amendment drives bloom of RNA viruses after soil wet-up

Soil rewetting after a dry period results in a surge of activity and succession in both microbial and DNA virus communities. Less is known about the r…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Soil Microbial Ecology Group @soilmicrobes.bsky.social · Mar 22

Great week teaching DNA-SIP and participating in a workshop on microbial ecology and biogeochemistry at ESALQ, Uni São Paulo. Great research and hospitality! Thank you @lucascanisares.bsky.social, Tsai Siu Mui, Maurício Roberto Cherubin, @agenciafapesp.bsky.social and CCARBON/USP for hosting us!

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Soil Microbial Ecology Group @soilmicrobes.bsky.social · Mar 13

Our perspective on soil virus ecology research is out!

Fantastic collab with
@christinahazard.bsky.social @karthik-a.bsky.social @lukehillary.bsky.social @urineri.bsky.social @simrouxvirus.bsky.social @gtrubl.bsky.social @KurtWilliams @jeffinerca.bsky.social @graemenicol.bsky.social @JoanneEmerson

Beneath the surface: Unsolved questions in soil virus ecology

Soil virus ecology is an exciting but still nascent field of research in soil microbiology. While there has been a recent surge in soil virus research…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Chris Greening @greening.bsky.social · Dec 10

New life goal unlocked! Getting to work on marsupials, including kangaroos, koalas, and my all time faves, wombats. Privileged to help on this great UQ-led study showing differences in hydrogen cycling and electron flow explain low methane emissions in marsupials.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Metagenomic analysis of marsupial gut microbiomes provides a genetic basis for the low methane economy

The potent greenhouse gas methane is an end-product of plant biomass digestion by gut microbiota, though the amount produced and/or released varies among herbivorous animals. On a per unit of feed bas...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Emily Solly @plantsoilemily.bsky.social · Dec 10

Are you interested in soils, microbes and biogeochemistry?

Join us at #EGU25 for session SSS4.5 ‚Soil microbial responses to climate change‘.

With
@loutsi.bsky.social @albertocanarini.bsky.social and Albert Brangarí we are thrilled to have
@ashish-malik.bsky.social as solicited keynote speaker!

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Graeme Nicol @graemenicol.bsky.social · Dec 5

Nice to see the formatted paper out in the wild. New ISME Journal paper by Sungeun Lee describing the use of differential inhibition to identify novel active virus families infecting soil nitrifiers. academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Ashish Malik @ashish-malik.bsky.social · Nov 21

📢New paper in ISME Journal: 7 years in the making spanning three affiliations. Really excited to present a trait analysis in populations.

Bacterial population-level trade-offs between drought tolerance and resource acquisition traits impact decomposition doi.org/10.1093/isme...

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Reposted by Graeme Nicol

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology @mpimarinemicrobio.bsky.social · Nov 13

In June 2025 we are hosting #ICoN9 – the 9th #International #Conference on #Nitrification and Related #Processes!

These are our invited speakers.
Stay tuned for more news!

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