Dacks Lab (Evolutionary Cell Biology)

Call for Papers! This Special Issue aims to showcase cutting-edge research presented at the Protistology Open meeting in Prague, as well as high-quality articles closely related to the scientific themes of the meeting. #protistsonsky

Are you an ISOP member? Did you know one of your membership benefits is FREE publishing in the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal... #protistsonsky

Protistology wins prizes everywhere this week. Congratulations to Anders Alfjorden and colleagues for this wonderful paper!

It is prizes for protistology this week! Congratulations to Chuanqi Jiang and colleagues for their work. Note, I actually dragged a non-protistologist colleague into my office to show them how cool Figure 6 of this paper was:)

Cool work! #ProtistsOnSky Mitochondrial proteome of the apicomplexan Babesia divergens by Betsinger et al. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A conserved GTPase complex gates exocytosis for defence and parasitism across alveolates #protists www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spatial proteomics reveals carboxysome adaptation and mitochondrial proteome in Paulinella chromatophora www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our description of fire amoeba, 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴, is now online at Cell! Thanks @oliverio.bsky.social and amazing team for questioning the limits of eukaryotes! 🔥 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

CoMR: an integrative scoring pipeline for comprehensive mitochondrial proteome reconstruction across eukaryotes #protists academic.oup.com/bib/article/...

Discovery of an Undocumented Symbiosis Between Arcellinida and a Flagellate Using Single-Cell Transcriptomics - Ani et al. (2026) Free link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/QBTIVR... #ProtistsOnSky

I'm a huge fan of #AquaticFungi, but do you know what else are amazing, important, and understudied? #Protists. I'm having a protist-filled Friday, starting with the fantastic ongoing defense of soon to be 'Dr.' @annewalraven.bsky.social of the @fburki.bsky.social lab. Check out her fantastic work 🎉

The International Society of Protistology is funding community initiatives like workshops and symposia! The deadline is soon (09/30) but the funding will also be available next year :-) Send to anyone that might benefit from this/plz retweet! #ProtistsonSky protistologists.org/call-for-app...

The extraordinary diversity, biology and complexity of #protists pose significant challenges to the #genomics community. That’s why a new collaboration will look to address some of the major technical barriers for sequencing protists from bulk cultures and the environment.

Love to see this 🤩 #protistsonsky

💯% going the right way. I’m excited that the @earlhaminst.bsky.social recognizes the critical importance of protists for science and society #protistsonsky

A Pan-European Whole-Microbiome Study of Wastewater Influent: Prokaryotes, Protists, Fungi, and Metazoa #microbiology #microbiome #wastewater #prokaryotes #protists #fungi #MicroSky onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I had fun at the NH museum today putting faces to names at this year's @protistologyuk.bsky.social conference. Talking about Aggi's Tiny Friends game and how we can promote it & develop it further. Had a quick look around the museum too. #ProtistsOnSky store.steampowered.com/app/3190840/...

Our paper describing two new photosynthetic Paulinella species is out today in JPhycol! This is the kind of work I love to do and even it though took many years to finish, we had a lot of fun stomping around together in the marsh! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #protistsonsky

wonderful! 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘢 no longer a rare outlier, but member of a worldwide (maybe) distributed clade.. #MicroSky #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky

🎉 New paper out! A pan-European study of the whole microbiome of wastewater influent - bacteria protists, fungi & metazoa - reveals geographic and seasonal patterns. It is @niklasnett.bsky.social Master’s thesis! 🥳 See my favorites, Rhogostoma and Arcella, in the figure! :) doi.org/10.1111/jeu....

Wow!

This was an exciting result to get in this year's IF scores, made possible because of all of you fantastic people who submit your great papers to JEM!! Please send more:)

New #ISEPpapers! Single-cell transcriptomics reveals lateral transfers of multiple functional genes from prokaryotes to free-living ciliated protists in detrital food webs link.springer.com/article/10.1... #Protists #Ciliates #Microbes #Evolution

New #ISEPpapers! Eukaryovorous Predation in Evolutionarily Significant Excavate‐Like Flagellates pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... #Protists #Microbes #Evolution

WOW! Congratulations to you both!!

New paper alert! Led by David Montagnes, this one is for scientists and non-scientists alike. The history, benefits, and future of Learned Societies. We need community, fostering of critical thinking, and communication, more than ever! link.springer.com/article/10.1... #protistsonsky

How did eukaryotic cells get their Golgi, endosomes, lysosomes and other endomembrane compartments? We show that endomembrane evolution depends on long periods of neutral molecular exploration, punctuated by sudden leaps. New preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga). 🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A nice tribute to Frank John Rupert “Max” Taylor by Juan F. Saldarriaga and Rowan Haigh. Feel free to share your own remembrances in the comments. #protistsonsky @dackslabecb.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Attending Protistology Open? Check out @nicolecoots.bsky.social & I's ISOP-sponsored symposium "The Symbiotic Continuum across the Tree of Life" (April 20th @ 11 AM)! We have an amazing lineup of speakers including Ondřej Pomahač, @mixotrophe.bsky.social, & Gillian Gile #ProtistsOnSky #Symbiosis

New #ISEPpapers! Single‐Cell Transcriptomes and Phylogenomic Analysis of Uncultivated #Oxymonads: Morelia Trznadel et al. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... #Protists #Microbes #Evolution #TreeOfLife #Phylogeny

#Ichthyosporea are not just the 5–6 species we and others have helped establish as models. Our recent synthesis suggests that ~95% of their species-level diversity remains uncultivated. In other words, we still know only a fraction of the map! #protistsonSky @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @prbb.org

Congratulations Fabien! Well deserved :)

I have to say, I expected more engagement with myPi day post. It was an all 'round disappointment.

Happy Holidays to those who celebrate!

In a study led by @choannaflagellate.bsky.social and @evocellbio.bsky.social using samples from a local mudflat in Maine, we found evidence of a new lineage of #protistsonsky that helps fill in gaps in our understanding of breviate (+Obozoa) mitochondrial evolution. www.bigelow.org/news/article...

Thank you @mollyherring.bsky.social for the stunning showcase 😍 Like what you see? Come ExM with us! Let’s flood the internet with microbial marvels 🦠 #ProtistsOnSky #MicroEvoSky 🧪🔬🌍 @dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @erc.europa.eu @embo.org