Mya Breitbart

Devastating news for the marine viral community - Markus was an excellent scientist and friend. #phagesky

NIU biologist’s research gains urgency as sea urchin outbreak threatens Caribbean | NIU Newsroom DEKALB, IL — As a deadly sea urchin disease resurfaces in the Caribbean, an NIU researcher is at the center of the effort to understand...

Could this be a early sign for what's to come this spring/summer? CC @ianhewson.bsky.social @viromegirl.bsky.social #UVI #microsky #parasitesky 🌊🦠🧬

newsroom.niu.edu/niu-biologis...

Marine bacteria degrade viral particles as a source of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur-rich dissolved organic matter academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... #jcampubs 🌊

High throughput in situ imaging reveals widely occurring diel vertical migration among phytoplankton Abstract. Phytoplankton undertake daily vertical migration through the water column to optimize light and nutrient access whilst avoiding predators. Howeve

High throughput in situ imaging reveals widely occurring diel vertical migration among phytoplankton academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... #jcampubs 🌊

Postdoc in Soil viral ecology - Vacancy at Aarhus University Vacancy at Department of Agroecology - Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Aarhus University

I'm hiring my first postdoc! Apply by 20/4/26, position #20443. Seeking an environmental microbiologist with experience in metagenomics (preferably viromics) and molecular biology. Experience with targeted metabolomics is a plus.
international.au.dk/about/profil...

Diagram representing the impacts of viruses on aqueous sediment geochemistry. Organic matter (OM) sinks to the sediments, which is cycled in the microbial community, as well as increasing abundance, diversity, activity, and degradation of OM. From this “microbial loop” recalcitrant dissolved organic matter (RDOM) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) are stored in sediments. Carbon is also released into the atmosphere from the sediment, and viral infection transfers genes between hosts or releases exogenous DNA to be used by bacteria, potentially aiding in metabolic activity. Created in BioRender. Williams, J. (2026) https://BioRender.com/b4wqimp.

#MicrobiologyMonday: Marine sediments store vast amounts of carbon. By infecting and lysing microbes, viruses shape biogeochemical cycling from coastal zones to the deep sea and influence long-term carbon storage. Get the story in #AppEnvMicro: asm.social/2Qv

Seasonal patterns of DOM molecules are linked to microbial functions in the oligotrophic ocean journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... #jcampubs 🌊

Four researchers on the deck of a ship prepare to collect a sample from the ocean. Image credit: Dr. Steven Wilhelm.

Viruses in the #ocean outnumber cells and shape ecosystems, yet their dynamics remain poorly understood. @sullivan-lab.bsky.social used high-resolution sampling of blue-ocean waters to reveal extensive depth- and diel-driven population dynamics beneath the surface.🧪 #MicroSky
plos.io/4lf9zJE

🌿 Postdoc opportunity in plant evolutionary ecology/genetics!

My lab in the Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to start Fall 2026.

We study plant adaptation, using weeds as model systems.

#Postdoc #EcoEvo

Pls RT!

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

NOAA Fisheries Is Hiring Find details about positions to be posted on USAJOBS.gov at NOAA Fisheries.

FISH JOB ALERT! NOAA Fisheries is looking to hire four stock assessment biologists. These positions can be located at any of our Fishery Science Centers from Seattle to Miami to Woods Hole. Applications are due by March 10!
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/careers-more...

Left) Schematic of electrical measurement on the sea urchin spine. When water flows through microchannels, the spines are negatively charged, resulting in a positively charged surrounding fluid. Right) Photos of a living D. setosum, showing a dome-shaped body shell surrounded by spike-like spines approximately 5–8 cm long.

Sea urchin spines demonstrate mechano-electrical transduction, enabling them to sense the water currents moving around them. Their tapered spines have a structural gradient that enhances response potential up to 1,000 times more than vision in the same species! 🧪

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

Fabulous day with @drchriskellogg.bsky.social and @viromegirl.bsky.social at the Mote Marine Lab International Coral Genetic Bank near Sarasota today!

💡 We are inviting you to nominate a woman in microbiology whose work or impact deserves to be seen.

Selected nominations will be featured on the FEMS website and across our social media channels on International Women’s Day, 8 March.

👉 Who inspires you? Nominate them by 4 March . buff.ly/AKyMbQD

How single-cell genomics is unmasking the hidden diversity of protists From giant kelp forests to the microscopic parasites in a single drop of water, protists represent the vast bulk of eukaryotic phylogenetic diversity.

From working on the Darwin #TreeofLife project to improving isolation and #sequencing methods, Dr Sally Warring is studying the diversity of #protists from natural environments to generate large-scale data for lineages underrepresented in the tree of life.

#protistsonsky

Read more! ⬇️

2026 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day!

Huge announcement: Girl Scouts on our trans girl scout cookies list have sold 250,000!!!!!! Boxes of girl scout cookies, a record for EITM's trans girl scout cookie drive.

Some have only sold 20 boxes though. I put those at the top of the list.

Lets close out this season and make their day! :)

If you are interested in investigating horizontal gene transfer by phages and virus-like particles using computational approaches, this postdoc position in the Callahan Lab could be for you

jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/226...

Stochastic Ocean Joy Why We Need More Wild, Unscheduled Wonder in an Unraveling MomentThere’s a phrase we’ve been playing with lately at Ocean Hoptimism. It began as a joke after a talk. Something muttered between sips of...

Weekend reminder: your brain runs on surprise. Tiny, unscripted bursts of ocean wonder—anchovies flashing, kelp catching light, a wave clapping deeply—aren’t distractions. They’re fuel. In an unraveling moment, choose stochastic joy. Let randomness keep you caring, returning, fighting. 🌊
#OceanJoy

Congratulations Fellows!

The American Academy of Microbiology proudly announces the election of 63 fellows to the Class of 2026. Over the past 50 years, the Academy has elected +2,700 distinguished scientists. This year, the new fellows hail from 14 countries. Read press release: asm.social/2OC

A deep-sea Graneledone octopus with arms spread out sitting on a basalt rock at Axial Seamount

This deep-sea octopus wants to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day on behalf of the OOI Regional Cabled Array team! ❤️
🌊🚢🧪

Man standing near lecture showing a beautiful electron microscopy image of phage infecting SAR11. He carried a genomes as great books analogy through his talk - this slide is called “War and Peace (SAR11 prophage)”

Great seminar by Bob Morris @cmarinescience.bsky.social today! @cninaphore.bsky.social and I are lucky to be collaborating with him on the hunt for SUP05 phage #NSFfunded #phagesky 🦠🌊

"There is not a word of ineligible [research] ... and I used to make these decisions,” said Susan Brennan, former director of NSF's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Two students she mentors have had applications deemed ineligible, and they're not alone. My latest for @statnews.com 👇

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

Follow these awesome women ocean scientists, many of whom I'm proud to call colleagues and delighted to call friends.

🧪🦑🌍🐟

go.bsky.app/7MdiLgo

We have an open position for a bioinformatics/theoretical microbial ecology PhD student to study viral strategies in the global Microverse! Join us at the @microverse.bsky.social at @uni-jena.de, please apply through this link:
jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/9...

I'm hearing from multiple people that students who submitted ecology GRFP proposals are having those proposals rejected without review, despite ecology being listed as an eligible field. If this is a programmatic change, this is devastating. Ecology is the study of Earth's life support systems.

What animal would you ride into battle?

Final morning in St Thomas for our NSF Diadema project emergency trip responding to an outbreak. Cultures are growing, urchins continue to die, and a quick survey of the site on the way to the airport revealed constrained impact for the moment. Collaborators at UVI will continue monitoring.

Emergency for Caribbean collaborators: There appears to be Diadema mortality somewhat reminiscent of the 2022 die off occurring right now in the USVI. If anyone hears of wider occurrences in the region please let us know! Please re-post!

Crowdsourcing please come through! Has anyone shotgun sequenced a negative kit control metagenome of the Qiagen DNEasy Blood & Tissue extraction kit between 2012-2020? Trying to get creative with some data rescue. 🧬

Sorry, I haven’t done any with that kit for metagenomics, only amplicon data for microbial community markers