Dominika Łuców

A lucky find- Lesquereusia in the middle of division! When finished, it will fill the second test (shell) that it built. Local bog sample. #testateamoebae #protistsonsky

Only 1 week left to apply for both advertised researcher positions in my new lab! If you're excited about #microbial #eukaryotes and #ecological #interactions, don’t miss the deadline - spread the word! For more info, visit my website: www.kennethdumack.de

Recently, we described a "new" species of amoeba. It's just been found it again, 700 km away. I suspect it's common in eastern N.A., but not noticed until it had a name. One reason to do taxonomy: describing a thing makes it visible! www.inaturalist.org/observations... #taxonomy #systematics

Cardinal ☺️

Fully funded PhD opportunity Ecohydrological response of tropical peatlands to climate change and human impacts (QUADRAT DTP: Ecohydrological response of tropical peatlands to climate change and human impacts at Queen’s University Belfast on findaphd.com)

🚨New preprint out! We show that Arcella spp., a shell-bearing amoeba, controls the abundance of the filamentous bacterium Ca. Microthrix parvicella, the main culprit behind sludge bulking in wastewater treatment plants. Interested in applicability of protists? Read along! #protistsonsky #microsky 🧵👇

First field trip this year, checking and maintaining equipment and reading data. Unfortunately, we start this year with worse moisture conditions than last year. If last year at the end of the summer on some sites the ground water dropped to -80 cm, I don't know how it will be this year...

🚩 Our poster, "An Inventory of Spatial Machine Learning Packages in R" was presented at #FOSSGIS2025 in Münster.🚩 It compares caret, mlr3, and tidymodels for spatial ML and highlights other relevant R packages. loek-rs.github.io/FOSSGIS2025-... #rstats #rspatial #machinelearning @FOSSGISeV

Avert your eyes if you have "trypophobia"! Here are some close views of the beautiful organic "glue" the amoeba Difflugia microclaviformis uses to cement together bits of quartz and diatoms, to build its shell. #ProtistsonSky #amoebae #peatlands #NatureisLit

Happy World Wetlands Day! 🙃 #WorldWetlandsDay

A perfect little thing, crafted by a cunning amoeboid. This shell was collected in a calcareous fen near Winnipeg, Canada. It's the handiwork (pseudopodiwork?) of the cercozoan amoeba Scutiglypha scutigera (=Euglypha scutigera). #ProtistsOnSky #TestateAmoebae #peatland

Meet Arcella prismatica, a new species of shelled amoeba from peatlands in suburban Ottawa and James Bay. doi.org/10.22621/cfn... #ProtistsOnSky #Protists #Amoebae

The shelled amoeba Zivkovicia compressa, divided internally by a central pillar and a thin-walled "diaphragm" with two round openings. Maybe for defense against parasitic rotifers and other micro-villains? Last pic shows its rather fancy organic cement. #ProtistsOnSky #Protists #Amoebae

Trinema scutarius sp. nov. (Siemensma et Łuców, 2025) 👉 arcella.nl/trinema-scut... 📜 authors.elsevier.com/a/1kP5K3K1I1... SEM photographs by Izabela Zawiska #TestateAmoebae #Protist #igsopas #peatland #Mongolia

I’m so excited! 🥳 Our new article just came out, describing a brand-new genus and four new species of #testate #amoebae from #Mongolia! #protists 🔬🌍 It was such a pleasure to collaborate with Ferry Siemensma – truly an inspiring scientist! 🙃 👉 authors.elsevier.com/a/1kP5K3K1I1...

Back in the lab, and the Minions are already causing chaos – looks like the old year is heading for a ‘productive’ finish 😅 #charcoal #paleoecology

Merry Christmas filled with joy and wonderful moments with your loved ones 🙃🎄🎄

Waiting for a flight during a snowstorm 🙃

Not a fish or a dragon scale, but a single cell of a #protistsonsky. This rhizarian testate amoeba creates perfect tiny glass scales to build it's shell. From a peat bog. #protistaday.

Gold Difflugia 🙃 #Testate #amoebae

With my twitter account deleted, I am going to start re-sharing some of my favorite images. While I'm working on specific scientific questions and hypotheses, I also like to use the tools at hand to simply explore the microscopic world. Here is the same testate amoeba in light, fluorescence, and SEM

Usually, I don't pay much attention to diatoms and chrysophytes, but when an amoeba glues a bunch of them together to make its shell, suddenly I can't stop staring. Here are two shells of Difflugia globulosa, collected in Chisasibi, on the coast of James Bay. #ProtistsOnSky

Trinema lineare, Mongolia #Testate #amoebae

I love #Sphagnum. Pomerania, Poland.