Phil Brailey-Crane

📣 JOBS!!! We're looking for new colleagues in the School of Biology @bioscienceleeds.bsky.social - two associate profs (plant sci and animal biology) and a lecturer (ecology/zoology)...

jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Associate Professor of Plant Science Associate Professor of Plant Science Salary: Grade 9 (£61,759 - £73,708 p.a, depending on experience)This role will be based on the university campus, with scope for elements of the job to be undertak...

Very excited to announce that we are hiring for three faculty positions at @universityofleeds.bsky.social in @bioscienceleeds.bsky.social: A/Prof Plant Science, A/Prof Animal Biology and Lecturer in Ecology, Zoology, Biodiversity or Ecosystem Management. Please do get in touch to chat. Links below:

Yes I'm in the incredibly bitter part of getting the next postdoc- it will pass 😂

Shout out to all the European institutes who won't interview a postdoc who's been running a lab for five years because I had to set up a damn lab and three field years before even considering deliverables! ✌️✌️✌️

Saw a paper from a postdoc I applied to in 2020. Happy to see this work out, and also very comforted to see that it took the same time as my current postdoc has been to also get to the advertised goal 😅 maybe we should stop penalizing 5yr research programs on further postdoc and faculty apps...

Quantifying the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and potato cyst nematodes on root system architecture using X-ray computed tomography https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.09.710487v1

Postdoc Development of a Microbial Volatile Database We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to develop and curate a comprehensive microbial volatile database within the framework of an interdisciplinary project at the Netherlands Inst...

Are you looking for a #postdoc that combines #bioinformatics with #microbial #ecology, metabolomics and data integration?
NIOO is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to develop and curate a comprehensive microbial volatile #database.
Respond by 13 March: nioo.knaw.nl/en/vacancies...

Nanodomain-localized formin gates symbiotic microbial entry in legume and solanaceous plants Colonization of plant roots by symbionts requires substantial morphodynamic reorganization. Examples are actin-scaffolded microcompartments called infection pockets formed during root nodule symbiosis...

Happy to share our latest work in collaboration with the lab of @pengbo10.bsky.social. Here, we describe that a formin protein mediates the polarity switch from root hair to infection thread growth during symbiotic interactions.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#TEworldwide #TEsky

Fungal partnerships and forest futures: how soil microbes shape tree seedling survival Sarah McCarthy-Neumann, Katherine E. A. Wood, Inés Ibáñez, Richard K. Kobe This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Forests are full of hid…

📰Published📰Fungal partnerships and forest futures: how soil microbes shape tree seedling survival🌱

buff.ly/fcf9W3W

🧪🌍️

Fig. 6 Hypothesized trade-offs across vascular species illustrating a water use economics framework.

#Viewpoint: From growth potential to drought survival: a trait- and time-based framework for plant water economics across vascular species

Volaire et al.
👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue #PlantScience

The results are finally in! 🏆💻🧬

I'm thrilled to announce that the manuscript for the Bits to Binders protein design competition is out on bioRxiv! Here's a summary of our findings, including some simple criteria that nearly *double* success rates when applied as a filter 🧵

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th 🪲🦠

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

Uncertainties of enhanced rock weathering for climate-change mitigation - Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy that converts atmospheric CO2 to stable carbonates by applying minerals to agricultural land. This Perspective discusses the p...

Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) on agricultural soils is being considered as a carbon dioxide removal strategy. However, uncertainties remain regarding feedstock availability, plant-soil impacts, CDR efficiency, and socio-economic considerations, limiting large-scale deployment. 🧪

There's been a lot of debate within the Democratic establishment about what rhetoric to use via ICE.

Well, an incumbent doesn't lose by 48 percentage points very often—and her vote on collaborating with ICE was the defining issue here.

ViroiDoc MSCA Doctoral Network announces workshop:

What: Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper

When: Thursday, 2 April 2026, 9:30–12:30 CET

Where: online, Webex

This event in English is open free of charge. Registration will open soon.

www.viroidoc.eu/b/dont-peris...

Ancient symbiosis between plants and fungi: important insights for sustainable agriculture Low potassium and high nitrogen levels throw soils out of balance

A team led by ecologist @christinakaiser.bsky.social has discovered that mycorrhizal symbiosis is sensitive to imbalances of certain nutrients in the soil. The data come from an experiment that has been running for over 70 years.

www.univie.ac.at/en/news/pres...

🧵1/3 #PlantScience

Long-term deficiencies of nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium affect arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi biomass in soil and roots, and plant biomass.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal families and exploration-based guilds exhibit distinct responses to long-term N, P and K deficiencies and imbalances

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
by Jenab et al.

@christinakaiser.bsky.social @ter-cemess.bsky.social #PlantScience

Hannah in a green jacket and pink top, with Carla Denyer MP to her right and Ellie Chowns MP on the left. All v colourful.

Hannah Spencer being sworn in as a Green Party MP this afternoon, after winning the Gorton & Denton by-election last week. Photo: House of Commons

Pacific Northwest #mycology folks, note that one of our most recognisable #fungi Phaeolus schweinitzii (dyer's polypore) is now considered misnamed. Most (but not all) in the PNW are P. occidentiamericanus.

AM fungi challenge a core assumption of cell biology. They can lose a core DNA polymerase (Polɛ) and survive for 360 million years! This blew my mind this weekend!
Reductive evolution of the DNA replication machinery in endosymbiotic fungi | bioRxiv
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

TSL Summer Conference in Plant-Microbe Interactions, 20th – 31st July… Inviting Early Career Researchers to join international experts in discussing the latest approaches and discoveries in Plant-Microbe Interactions …

Just a reminder that our TSL Summer Conference in Plant-Microbe Interactions is taking place this summer in Norwich!

⏰ APPLY by 30 March 2026

More info on our website: www.tsl.ac.uk/tsl-summer-c...

If you’re part of any creative groups, unions or other organisations in the uk you should be passing news like this along and spreading the world. News like this gets has the chance to be overlooked but if enough organisations kick up a fuss things can change.

A great opportunity for ecologists working in nature recovery:

@savebutterflies.bsky.social Limestone Grassland Landscape Officer, in Co. Fermanagh, N Ireland. 3-year fixed-term post, deadline for applying is 23 March.
butterflyconservation.livevacancies.co.uk#/job/details... #GenerationRestoration

Really pleased to be speaking at this event. Come and join us in Switzerland!

AI Keeps Failing at Microbiome Prediction Why simple models keep winning, where deep learning still shines, and where the field is headed

AI has huge promise for genomics -- but it has consistently failed at microbiome-based prediction.

My new post on why simple models keep winning, where deep learning actually earns its place, and where the field is headed

blekhman.substack.com/p/ai-keeps-f...

rambaut/figtree Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/figtree - rambaut/figtree

The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.

Discovery and cultivation of prokaryotic taxa in the age of metagenomics and artificial intelligence Abstract. Despite advances in sequencing, microbial genomics, and cultivation techniques, the vast majority of prokaryotic species remain uncultured, which

Discovery and cultivation of prokaryotic taxa in the age of metagenomics and artificial intelligence
#microbiology #prokaryotes #archaea #bacteria
@isme-microbes.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Rhizoglomus clarum inoculation enhances drought tolerance and photosynthetic performance of maize in sterile and natural soils | Research Square

Host plant phylogeny predicts arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities, but plant life history and fungal genetic change predict feedback Symbioses exert strong influence on host phenotypes; however, benefits from symbionts can increase or degrade over time. Understanding the context-dependence of reinforcing or degrading dynamics is pivotal to predicting stability of symbiotic benefits. Host phylogenetic relationships and host life history traits are two candidate axes that have been proposed to structure symbioses. However, the relative influence of host evolutionary history and life history on symbiont composition, and whether changes in symbiont composition translate into stronger mutualistic benefits is unknown. We tested the influence of plant phylogenetic relationships and plant life history on the composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, perhaps the most ancestral and influential of plant symbionts, and then tested whether AM fungal differentiation resulted in improved mutualism as expected from coadaptation. We constructed mycobiomes composed of seven AM fungal isolates derived from tallgrass prairie and grew them for two growing seasons with 38 grassland plant species. We found that host phylogenetic structure was a significant predictor of the composition of AM fungal communities and the genetic composition of AM fungal species, patterns consistent with phylosymbiosis. However, the phylogenetic structure of AM fungi failed to translate to improved benefits to their host. While AM fungi generally improved plant growth and mycorrhizal feedback was generally positive, the strength of feedback was not predicted by plant phylogenetic distance. The composition of the AM fungal community and genetic composition within AM fungal species were also significantly influenced by plant life history and feedbacks between early and late successional species were generally positive. Interestingly, positive mycorrhizal feedback was predicted by changes in genetic composition of the two most abundant AM fungal species, not by changes in species composition. Positive mycorrhizal feedbacks across life history can mediate plant species turnover during succession and suggests that consideration of mycorrhizal dynamics could improve ecosystem restoration.

Host plant phylogeny predicts arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities, but plant life history and fungal genetic change predict feedback | PLOS Biology