Dr. Claudia Pogoreutz

'Climate change is speeding up — the pace nearly doubled in ten years'
@nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

@radecker.bsky.social @upvd.bsky.social

🪸The mechanisms of cold-induced symbiotic breakdown and bleaching appear to be the same as for heat-stressed Cnidaria.

Thanks to my incredible team for this beautiful effort – I am looking forward to more exciting research to come.

Please share widely (and wildly)

🪸Overall, this suggests that chilling injury to algal symbionts caused a decoupling of light and dark reactions of photosynthesis – ultimately resulting in the breakdown of symbiotic nutrient cycling.

Using untargeted LC-MS metabolomics, we further found evidence for catabolic digestion of protein reserves and increases in pre-apoptotic markers in cold-stressed anemone holobionts.

🪸Despite high photosynthetic efficiency, we witnessed the collapse of gross photosynthesis of algal symbionts.

🪸No gross photosynthesis inevitably equates to a lack of new photosynthate production – which ultimately means: host starvation.

Using our emerging photosymbiotic sea anemone model system (‘in progress’), we simulated a marine cold spell and found that:

🪸Cold stress caused symbiotic breakdown and oxidative stress in the sea anemone holobiont.

❄️ Similar to heatwaves, marine cold spells are predicted to increase in frequency as a result of global climate change. Importantly, cold stress can cause bleaching in photosymbiotic Cnidaria, although the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood.

🌡️ Marine heatwaves are the main driver of coral reef ecosystem loss globally – they undermine the metabolic benefits of the coral-algae symbiosis, ultimately resulting in bleaching and mortality of corals, the main ecosystem engineers of tropical reefs.

I am pleased to share a preprint:

Chilling injury to algal symbionts induces host starvation and metabolic reorganization in a temperate cnidarian

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#SymbioSky #MicroSky

#internationslwomensday @agencerecherche.bsky.social @pure-ocean.bsky.social

How specific are heritable symbioses?

And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species?

We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com!

1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping tipping risks from Antarctic ice basins under global warming - Nature Climate Change Climate change threatens the future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here the authors show that individual drainage basins have different thresholds and loss patterns, suggesting the need to consider the d...

Antarctica isn’t one big tipping point.

New research maps 18 separate ice basins, each with its own threshold. Some in West Antarctica may tip at just ~1–2C warming (i.e close to today’s levels).

Cross the line, and you commit to m’s of sea-level rise over centuries

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

Check out my latest piece in @hechingerreport.org !

First of many as an OpEd Project Public Voices Fellow

🌟 Do you want to read it, but feel the end of the year rush? Maren Ziegler and I have got you covered with this short preview:
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
#SymbioSky #MicroSky

🪸 Wei et al recently published a beautiful hologenome study of a deep-sea black coral, revealing the intricate metabolic interactions that underpin the intertwined lives of these animals and their microbial symbionts.

Here the study published in Cell Host & Microbe 👇🏻
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

🦠 Studying the biology and symbiotic relationships of holobionts living in extreme environments, such as the deep sea, is challenging. However, uncovering the strategies of these organisms to overcome harsh environmental constraints offers crucial insights into ecology and evolution of marine life.

New preprint!
We explore how gutless marine worms and their bacterial symbionts use organosulfur compounds like DMSP and DMS - key molecules in marine sulfur cycling.
Our results show that these compounds support carbon and energy metabolism in the Olavius algarvensis symbiosis.

New preprint: 🚀🧬 Starship in the genome of the lichen fungus Xanthoria. Discovery of giant transposons Starships challenged what we thought we knew about fungal genomes. But what about Starships in #lichen fungi? Let us present Tangerine! 🖥️ 🧪 🦠 🧫 #SymbioSky doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Fascinating hologenome study of a deep-sea black coral and their microbial symbionts 🪸

Our November issue examines Global Steps Forward as we mark 5 years of COVID-19. The issue includes discussion pieces from authors across the globe, examining insights gained on SARS-CoV-2, lessons learned, and next steps forward.
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

A couple of days left to submit your abstract for the upcoming EMBO/EMBL Symposium on the Molecular Basis of Symbiosis ! Great line up of speakers :)
#ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky

Here, we show that deep below, corals and feather stars don’t just share space – they share microbes. Endozoicomonadaceae + Nitrosopumilaceae inhabit both hosts in a “promiscuous” symbiosis that may fuel nitrogen cycling in the deep sea.
doi.org/10.1186/s401... 🌊🪸🧪 #Bioinformatics 🧬💻 #SymbioSky

Happy weekend, symbiosis friends #SymbioSky #MicroSky

In memory of the Christmas Island shrew It never weighed more than a spoonful of sugar. Five or six grams of life, soft-furred and sharp-nosed, darting among the roots and leaf litter of a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. At night, its voic...

This got to me. Haunting and beautifully written. news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-m...

Bleaching: more than just a coral problem.

This is Chapter 4 of volume 21 of the 'Coral Reefs of the World' Series – The Future of Coral Reefs: Evidence from Research, edited by Serge PLANES.

🧬 Finally, we provide future directions on protection strategies and discuss the use of multi-omics tools for an integrated understanding of bleaching on coral reefs.

👇 You can find the chapter here:
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

🔧 We provide a detailed overview of current tools to detect bleaching events at different spatial and temporal scales, the physiological and molecular mechanisms of bleaching, and the major hypotheses of bleaching.

🔬 Bleaching has been extensively studied in corals, but there are other coral reef animals that bleach under stress, which haven’t received much attention.

👩‍🔬 Interested? In this herculean effort led by Caroline Dubé, we provide an overview of bleaching in a diversity of reef animals.