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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · 3d

Beautiful morning in the Smokies at SEPEEG 2025. Listening to Fisher’s geometric model, with coffee, in the mountain air, just hits different. 🏔️ ☕️

Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · 8d

Our lab is hiring!!
We are looking for a research assistant who will be involved with our experimental evolution studies on how stress affects population dynamics in E. coli.
Great opportunity for recent grads!
E-mail for more info and apply here:
ecsr.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · 9d

Hey Zach! First, you talk about me in class?! That’s incredibly flattering! Second, because of the meaning behind the event (a benefit to support survivors of SA) it might not be the most appropriate for class. But if you want a casual photo to show scientists as people, I’m happy to give you some!

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · 10d

Always a great night when we can get dressed up, wear goofy flamingo hats, and raise money for an amazing cause! Another great Mad Hatter in the books for the Nashville SAC @nashvilleSAC! (Yes, we did win best couple hats!)

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt @evolutionvu.bsky.social · 11d

Eis: machine learning to reverse-engineer #evolution. Brassington (@amandalea.bsky.social): Evolutionary mismatch. Rose: Genome-scale models. Bruder (@megbehri.bsky.social): Computational & experimental microbial evolution.

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Aug 20

No worries, just for anyone else who is curious I guess..

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Aug 20

I’m also a yes.

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Jul 3

Really proud of Owen Hale, a Ph.D. Candidate in our group who was awarded the Gut Microbiome, Yogurt and Probiotic Fellowship by Danone North America.

Owen’s research focuses on E. coli / Lactic Acid Bacteria interactions!

www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

Danone North America Invests in the Future of Microbiome Science with 2024-2025 Fellowship Awards

/PRNewswire/ -- Danone North America, a leading purpose-driven food and beverage company and one of the world's largest Certified B Corporations®, is proud to...

www.prnewswire.com

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · Jun 27

Microbial cross-feeding stabilized by segregation of a dependent mutant from its independent ancestor

#ISMEJournal by @ofsheff.bsky.social et al from @jakemckinlay.bsky.social

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

Microbial cross-feeding stabilized by segregation of a dependent mutant from its independent ancestor

Abstract. Microbial gene loss is hypothesized to be beneficial when gene function is costly, and the gene product can be replaced via cross-feeding from a

academic.oup.com

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Jun 22

Carl is an awesome science communicator. He’s finishing up his PhD focused on bacterial epigenetics and evolution. He’s a rockstar at applying Bayesian statistical approaches to large omics datasets!

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Jun 22

Really proud of PhD Candidate Carl Stone, advocating for science and scientific funding by wiring this opinion piece for his hometown newspaper in Minnesota.

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · Jun 1

An Anaerobic Pathogen Rewires Host Metabolism to Fuel Oxidative Growth in the Inflamed Gut https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.31.657111v1

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · May 14

Truly awful. I’m so sorry you and your lab are getting targeted by all this.

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · May 9

Given that there are 435 voting members of Congress, I would have hoped for more than 25% of House members to support American innovation in science and technology. 112? That’s it? No one else wants answers?!?!

Congressman Bill Foster @repbillfoster.bsky.social · May 9

NEWS: I just led 112 of my colleagues in demanding answers from the Trump Administration on their funding freeze of the National Science Foundation.

Cutting off NSF funding threatens vital research, stalls innovation, and risks ceding global scientific leadership to China.

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Christian Kost @kostchristian.bsky.social · Apr 24

Very cool new work by @megbehri.bsky.social and William F. McLaughlin:

Starvation drives co-existence in cross-feeding bacterial populations

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Starvation drives co-existence in cross-feeding bacterial populations

Cross-feeding is a universal feature of natural microbial communities that extends even into subpopulation structures, generating cooperative ecotypes. However, we still lack an understanding of the e...

www.biorxiv.org

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Mar 6

Of course! It was a fun paper to write because we got to really dig in and think about Rho (and mutations that evolve in Rho) in bacteria other than our usual E. coli! Especially, the gram positives where Rhi can have such an impact on development too!

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Mar 6

Thanks for the Signal Boost, Ákos!

We’re so happy to see our review discussing Rho as an evolutionary capacitor out in Transcription!
It’s an exciting follow up to our recent research article & opens up a discussion of where we expect evolutionary capacitors to exist b/w the genotype/phenotype gap.

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · Mar 6

Rho-dependent termination: a bacterial evolutionary capacitor for stress resistance

Review in Transcription from @megbehri.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Rho-dependent termination: a bacterial evolutionary capacitor for stress resistance

Since the Modern Synthesis, interest has grown in resolving the “black box” between genotype and phenotype. Contained within this black box are highly plastic RNA and proteins with global effects o...

www.tandfonline.com

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Mar 1

Excited to announce our latest manuscript on bioRxiv! Led by PhD student Owen Hale, we anaerobically examine the mutation rates of aerotolerant anaerobic species of Lactic Acid Bacteria: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus crispatus, and Lactococcus lactis.

bioRxiv Genetics @biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · Mar 1

Elevated rates and biased spectra of mutations in anaerobically cultured lactic acid bacteria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.28.639667v1

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Jay T Lennon @jaytlennon.bsky.social · Feb 27

Congratulations to @emmiamueller.bsky.social on:

"Residence time structures microbial communities through niche partitioning"

Now out in Ecology Letters:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Residence Time Structures Microbial Communities Through Niche Partitioning

Much of life on earth is at the mercy of currents and flow. Residence time (τ) estimates how long organisms and resources remain in a system based on the ratio of volume (V) to flow rate (Q). We test...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Feb 11

Really enjoyed visiting NC State for the Genetics and Genomics seminar yesterday! Got to chat with a great group of researchers, heard awesome science, and the food scene in Raleigh was pretty yum! 🧬🧫

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · Jan 23

I am confident that scientific societies will play an unusually important role in the coming years. If you are a microbiologist of any kind, please consider joining @asm.org if you haven't already. There are many ways to get involved, including advocacy.
To learn more:
asm.org/About-ASM/Vo...

Volunteer With ASM | Overview

ASM volunteer opportunities range from speaking with legislators about funding research during ASM's annual Hill Day, to writing articles for asm.org, to serving on committees and the Board of Directo...

asm.org

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Jan 23

To all the other professors who also opened their labs in the middle of COVID and are now going to go up for tenure during this mess, I see you. 🤦‍♀️

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Mike Blazanin @mikeblazanin.bsky.social · Nov 14

Applications are open for the Microbial Population Biology GRS and GRC!

The GRS is a fun day for grad students and postdocs to network before the full GRC starts, and is co-chaired this year by me and Laura Suttenfield

Get your applications in by Jan 15! #evosky 🦠🧪

www.grc.org/microbial-po...

2025 Microbial Population Biology (GRS) Seminar GRC

The 2025 Gordon Research Seminar on Microbial Population Biology (GRS) will be held in Andover, New Hampshire. Apply today to reserve your spot.

www.grc.org

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Reposted by Megan Behringer

Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt @evolutionvu.bsky.social · Nov 15

Excited for the upcoming #VUEvoMag Magazine! " @megbehri.bsky.social reached out to me a few weeks after my lab opened at Vanderbilt with this interesting observation about solution pH, but wondered if there was a way we could measure pH inside cells," Bratton recalled. loom.ly/a1hXE2o

Three members of a research team are pictured in a laboratory. The man on the left wears a blue button- down shirt, the woman in the center has long red hair, wearing a blue and white patterned blouse. On the right stands another woman with brown hair, wearing a tan blazer over a black top. They stand in front of lab equipment and cables.

Three members of a research team are pictured in a laboratory. The man on the left wears a blue button- down shirt, while the two women beside nim, with brown and red hair, respectively, are dressed in professional attire, smiling at the camera. Laboratory shelves with various bottles and containers are visible in the background.

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Megan Behringer @megbehri.bsky.social · Oct 21

Introducing our lab’s newest Ph.D candidate William McLaughlin. William is doing an awesome microbial systems ecology project that’s already turning out some cool results. Keep an eye out for this rising star.

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