Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Taylor priest

@taylorpriest.bsky.social

430 followers 310 following 130 posts

NOMIS-ETH fellow at Institute of Microbiology and Center of Origin and Prevalence of Life, ETH Zurich | microbial ecologist interested in diversification, evolution and mobile genetic elements | Parent of a beautiful Briard | food and fitness enthusiast

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · Aug 14

The JEDI marker - a new approach for measuring #biodiversity that captures all domains of life and is applicable across biological and ecological scales. It's time to change the way we perceive biodiversity - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The JEDI marker as a universal measure of planetary biodiversity

Despite its critical importance in the formation and maintenance of ecosystems and homeostasis on Earth, biodiversity remains a complex and non-unified concept. Consequently, standards for measuring b...

www.biorxiv.org

1 7 13

Reposted by Taylor priest

Jelena Godrijan 🫧❾🌊🦋 @godi.bsky.social · 3d

⚠️New paper ➡️ isolating >600 freshwater microbes using dilution-to-extinction and low-nutrient, lake-mimicking media.

🤯Expands cultured diversity to ~70 % of detected genera and enables physiological studies of streamlined oligotrophs.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#protistsonsky

Bringing the uncultivated microbial majority of freshwater ecosystems into culture - Nature Communications

A large fraction of aquatic bacteria remains uncultured. Here, the authors cultivated 627 strains of abundant freshwater bacteria from 14 European lakes, thus generating a collection that includes many previously uncultured, oligotrophic bacteria that may serve as model organisms.

www.nature.com

1 25 65

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · 5d

🚨Our book is now available for pre-order🚨

It was such an honour to contribute to this, as this was the book that opened my eyes to, and inspired me to study #marine #microbiology!

Highly recommend for students/academics wishing to learn about marine microbes.

www.routledge.com/Marine-Micro...

Marine Microbiology: Ecology & Applications

The fourth edition of this bestselling text has been rigorously updated to reflect major new discoveries and concepts since 2019. This new edition reflects important new findings in marine microbiolog...

www.routledge.com

2 11

Reposted by Taylor priest

Nature @nature.com · 6d

Jane Goodall, known for her pioneering work with chimpanzees, has passed away aged 91

go.nature.com/46K10ja

Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science

The primatologist challenged what it meant to be a scientist.

go.nature.com

3 45 140

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · 7d

Interested in aligning your long sequences or small genomes against huge reference databases containing millions of prokaryotic genomes ? A new tool has been released that can do this efficiently - LexicMap - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Efficient sequence alignment against millions of prokaryotic genomes with LexicMap - Nature Biotechnology

LexicMap uses a fixed set of probes to efficiently query gene sequences for fast and low-memory alignment.

www.nature.com

8 13

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · 10d

Me too ;) it's a great resource as it stands though!

Reposted by Taylor priest

Steven Robbins @stevenjrobbins.bsky.social · 13d

Hey all! Now that i've left my position at UQ, I thought I would leverage my network here to see if anyone has leads on environmental genomics, biotech, marine policy positions in the US/Canada/Australia/Europe. I'd love to speak with anyone in those fields re openings, worthwhile recruiters, etc.

1 13 15

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · 15d

A nice study combining newly generated and existing #HiC data to explore virus-host interactions across ecosystems (although very small sample number) -

#Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems - Nature Microbiology

Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.

www.nature.com

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · 19d

Such a fascinating story revealing how sea slugs can maintain the activity of ingested chloroplasts for up to a year to aid through starvation periods before later digesting them - www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis

Sea slugs steal foreign chloroplasts and store them in specialized organelles that facilitate photosynthesis and eventual digestion to mediate starvation resistance.

www.cell.com

1 7

Reposted by Taylor priest

A. Murat Eren (Meren) @merenbey.bsky.social · 20d

Have you ever looked at some differentially occurring gene clusters in a microbial #pangenome and thought to yourself "I wonder if they contribute to any metabolic modules"?

With the most recent changes, the answer is a few clicks away in #anvio 😇

2 18 62

Reposted by Taylor priest

Andrian Gajigan @adi-gajigan.bsky.social · 21d

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail
nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63463-6

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail - Nature Communications

Rodrigues and Queiroz et al. report the discovery of Naiavirus, the largest enveloped virus, isolated from a Brazil biome. With an oval capsid and flexible tail, its giant genome holds many novel gene...

nature.com

28 48

Reposted by Taylor priest

Sonja-Verena Albers @archaellum.bsky.social · 21d

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

7 58 120

Reposted by Taylor priest

MicrobiomeResearchLab @microbiomeresearch.bsky.social · 25d

🚨New preprint from the lab🚨 We present a transcriptomic, marker gene-based growth classifier that predicts the growth states of bacterial strains from different phyla cultivated in diverse conditions.

#MicroSky #MicroEcoEvo #MicroEco #Microbiology

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

Transcriptomic profiles of single-copy marker genes enable predicting bacterial growth states in microbial communities

Studying microbial community dynamics is fundamental to better understand ecosystem stability, resilience and environmental change. Community composition changes with the growth of individual members,...

www.biorxiv.org

3 2

Reposted by Taylor priest

ISME - International Society for Microbial Ecology @isme-microbes.bsky.social · 28d

✈️ Calling all grad students & postdocs in microbial ecology!
Want to work, train, or collaborate abroad? ISME’s Scholar Mobility Fund can help you get there.
📅 Apply by 1 October
🌍 Open to applicants worldwide (esp. outside NA & Europe!)
Details: isme-microbes.org/isme-scholar...
#MicrobialEcology

1 10 11

Reposted by Taylor priest

Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 29d

Future ocean warming may cause large reductions in Prochlorococcus biomass and productivity www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Future ocean warming may cause large reductions in Prochlorococcus biomass and productivity - Nature Microbiology

Decade-long field measurements and modelling show that projected ocean temperatures could restrict cell division rates of an important marine cyanobacterium.

www.nature.com

1 5 17

Reposted by Taylor priest

AnniZLab: [🦠, 🧬 , ✨] @annizlab.bsky.social · 29d

🦠📉A comprehensive model quantifying virus killing of bacteria based on bacterial population dynamics! Curious to see how it aligns with our simple model (Fig. 5) 👉 www.cell.com/cell-genomic... Bacterial density+dilution events strongly impact CRISPR immunity updates!! @mikeblazanin.bsky.social 🧪

3 15

Reposted by Taylor priest

Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Sep 3

At last ! A tool specifically for phage-plasmid hunters. Check tyPPing by @karinailchenko.bsky.social and @eugenpfeifer.bsky.social

Karina Ilchenko @karinailchenko.bsky.social · Sep 3

🚨 New preprint! 🧬

𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐞-𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬 (𝐏-𝐏𝐬) are fascinating elements: both 𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 and 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬 ➡️ tricky to detect.

We present 𝐭𝐲𝐏𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐠 — the first 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥 🛠️designed specifically for P-Ps:
✅ Accurate
✅ Sensitive
✅ Easy to use

📖 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Efficient detection and typing of phage-plasmids

Phage-plasmids are temperate phages that replicate as plasmids during lysogeny. Despite their high diversity, they carry genes similar to phages and plasmids. This leads to gene exchanges, and to the ...

www.biorxiv.org

16 47

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · Sep 7

Estinates of the net rate of lateral gene transfer in marine prokaryotes from single-cell amplified genome analysis - academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Net rate of lateral gene transfer in marine prokaryoplankton

Abstract. Lateral gene transfer is a major evolutionary process in Bacteria and Archaea. Despite its importance, lateral gene transfer quantification in na

academic.oup.com

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · Sep 5

A very timely perspective piece on how we should interpret and study auxiliary metabolic genes in viruses

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A call for caution in the biological interpretation of viral auxiliary metabolic genes - Nature Microbiology

This Perspective discusses virus-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes and provides a framework for the biological interpretation of these genes.

www.nature.com

Reposted by Taylor priest

Steven Robbins @stevenjrobbins.bsky.social · Sep 4

Side note: One often thinks they're not recovering low-abundance taxa because they're low-abundance. But with Illumina, it's also likely because they're low-GC and Illumina has strong GC bias. You can fix this with wetlab intervention like this, or using ONT instead, which doesn't have a GC-bias.🧵

Tominaga K. (tomiken) @pacyc184.bsky.social · Sep 3

Genomic recovery from rare terrestrial microbes enabled by DNA-based GC-fractionation | ISME Communications | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/ismecommun/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ismeco/ycaf152/8246624?rss=1&login=false

Genomic recovery from rare terrestrial microbes enabled by DNA-based GC-fractionation

Abstract. Genome reconstruction from metagenomic samples has dramatically increased our understanding of uncultivated lineages of life. However, untargeted

dx.doi.org

4 6 21

Reposted by Taylor priest

Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · Sep 3

The achievable carbon uptake from planting trees is much lower than previous estimates, and even lower than many nations have committed to. New paper by Wang et al. in Science. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪🌏🌳🌲🌐

Fig. 3. Estimated mitigation potential from forestation varies with land availability assumptions. (A) Global and regional ecosystem carbon sequestration. BA19 (10), GR17 (8), and Qin24 (24) refer to respective assumptions of land potentially available for forestation. The “committed” assumption considers only national commitments, and “achievable” shows currently achievable land limited by availability defined in Qin24 (see materials and methods section M3). (B) The currently achievable mitigation potential varies among countries and income groups. Country-specific data are available in data S3 (24). Country codes and corresponding income groups can be found in table S6.

4 42 93

Reposted by Taylor priest

Mahwash Jamy @mjamy.bsky.social · Sep 3

Check out our new paper on adopting a trait-based framework for protist diversity! We make the case for a unified protist trait database, how to build it, and how it could transform research on protist ecology and evolution.
#protistsonsky

Pierre Ramond @pierreramond.bsky.social · Sep 3

Hello there 🦋
Happy to share our piece "Towards a trait-based framework for protist ecology and evolution" in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social

Let's build a unified trait 📏 database to unlock transformative insights into protist 🔬 ecology 🌍 and evolution ⏳

▶️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

#protistsonsky

1 25 54

Taylor priest @taylorpriest.bsky.social · Aug 29

Cultivation and complete genome sequencing of 34 marine #Arctic bacteria reveals insights into their diversity and adaptations - journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Genomic diversity and adaptation in Arctic marine bacteria | mBio

Genetic diversity has limited efforts to assemble and compare whole genomes from natural populations of marine bacteria. We developed a cultivation-based population genomics approach to culture and se...

journals.asm.org

1 2

Reposted by Taylor priest

Microbiome Virtual International Forum @microbiomevif.bsky.social · Aug 28

Season 5 is going to start 🔜

Check out the program and
feel free to join the keynotes by presenting your work–abstract submission is open www.microbiome-vif.org/en-US/-/info...

@kathlemon.bsky.social ‬ @saramitri.bsky.social @simrouxvirus.bsky.social @halllab.bsky.social @deepaagashe.bsky.social

1 14 22

Reposted by Taylor priest

Rachel Gregor @rachelgregor.bsky.social · Aug 25

🌊🦠🧪 Delighted to share this work now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/isme... The currency of microbial life is chemistry, but there’s so much still unknown about how metabolic interactions shape communities. 1/

Vitamin auxotrophies shape microbial community assembly on model marine particles

Abstract. Microbial community assembly is governed by the flow of carbon sources and other primary metabolites between species. However, central metabolism

doi.org

1 14 24

Reposted by Taylor priest

Nature Microbiology @natmicrobiol.nature.com · Aug 26

#Comment

A call for early-career teams in interdisciplinary microbiology research

#MicroSky

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A call for early-career teams in interdisciplinary microbiology research - Nature Microbiology

Early-career researchers play an integral role in building and maintaining interdisciplinary microbiological research.

www.nature.com

1 4 13