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🔬🦠 New research shows that even single-celled bacteria can sense and prepare for seasonal changes. Scientists have discovered that cyanobacteria, despite their short 5-hour lifespan, can anticipate winter's approach and activate 'seasonal genes' to adjust their cell membranes for colder temperatures. This finding challenges our understanding of how organisms perceive time and suggests that seasonal adaptation might be a fundamental aspect of life. The research team found that this ability is linked to the same genes controlling circadian rhythms in these ancient organisms. This connects these simple bacteria to complex seasonal behaviors we see in plants and animals today, hinting that anticipating seasons may have emerged early in life's evolution. #Microbiology #Evolution #Science #Research

Our last common ancestor lived 4.2 billion years ago—perhaps hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought Genomes of diverse microbes point to early evolution of a rudimentary immune system ROBERT F. SERVICE Excerpt: “The last ancestor shared by all living organisms was a microbe that lived 4.2 billion years ago, had a fairly large genome encoding some 2600 proteins, enjoyed a diet of hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide, and harbored a rudimentary immune system for fighting off viral invaders. That’s the conclusion of a new study that compared the genomes of a diverse range of 700 modern microbes and looked for commonalities to identify which features arose first. Although the analysis doesn’t reveal how life got its start, it suggests a complex cellular organism somewhat similar to modern microbes evolved only a few hundred million years after Earth’s formation. “I was quite excited,” says Betül Kaçar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who saw the research presented this week at the Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (The study is also published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution.) “It’s a comprehensive analysis and a good example of how to do this work.” It’s not the first attempt to sketch the identity of the hypothetical last universal common ancestor, or LUCA. In 2016, for example, researchers led by William Martin, an evolutionary biologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, used a related approach of comparing known microbial genomes to provide the most compelling genetic evidence yet that LUCA likely was an anaerobe that grew in an environment devoid of oxygen required by most cells today. Martin’s genetic analysis also found evidence suggesting it was a “thermophile,” a heat-loving microbe, that fed on hydrogen gas (H2). That combination suggested it may have lived near deep-sea ocean vents near underwater volcanoes…” #evolution #originoflife #biology #education #science #genomics #research

“Traditionally, we've kept the visible and invisible forms of life separate in the way we consider and study them. Many scientists still think of microbes in terms of background noise or minor contaminants. But it turns out that this approach may have been selling the microbes short. "Microbes are the base of the biosphere," Bordenstein explains. "Every host organism lives in contact and association with microbes, and those microbes can cause variation in traits." This realization has given birth to a new concept - holobiont biology; a multidisciplinary and holistic understanding of how life's forms and functions depend upon relationships between microorganisms and their hosts. Holobiont biology considers organisms and the microbes with which they are inseparably linked as a whole, rather than as separate entities.” https://lnkd.in/erC7pkBQ

How do you sequence the genomes of 70,000 species? Dr Liam Crowley joins Oxford Sparks' Big Questions podcast to talk about the ground-breaking Darwin Tree of Life project, which aims to tackle this monumental task in Britain and Ireland. Discover the challenges and technological advances that make this possible, and explore the potential applications in fields like conservation genetics and evolutionary biology.   Tune in to find out how this project could revolutionise our understanding of biodiversity and the future of life on Earth ➡ https://lnkd.in/eSpZdBy3

⏰ Abstract submission deadline alert for #EMBOEvoEco ⏰ You only have a few days left to send your abstract for the EMBO workshop 'Molecular mechanisms in evolution and ecology' 🧑🤝🧑🌳 The deadline is 10 July: ➡️ https://lnkd.in/evSkYav5 Join researchers from a wide range of fields and organismal systems to gain mechanistic insights on major outstanding ecological and evolutionary questions. The 2024 edition of this successful workshop series focuses on interspecies and cell-environment interactions, with a spotlight on bacteria, microbial eukaryotes, and viruses 🔦🦠 These scientific organisers have put together a fantastic programme: 🌿 Gilles Fischer 🌿 Jordi van Gestel 🌿 Kimberly Kline 🌿 Sara Mitri 🌿 Antonis Rokas Don't miss out on the opportunity to be part of innovative discussions and discoveries! 🌟 📅 8 – 11 October 2024 📍 EMBL Heidelberg and Virtual #EMBL #EMBLCourse #handsonlearning #Evolution #Ecology #Genetics #Genomics #systemsbiology #metabolicmodelling #microbiology #genotypephenotypemap #selection #populationgenetics #biofilms #microbiome #metagenomics #omicstechnologies #geneticengineering #evolutionarybiology #ecosystems #biodiversity #microbes

Scientists are rewriting the book on butterfly evolution! A groundbreaking study has revealed that the iconic Chalkhill Blue butterfly has a surprising number of chromosomes, varying across its European range. This discovery, part of the Psyche project, is shedding light on how species adapt to changing environments and offers crucial insights into conserving threatened butterflies. By understanding their genetic makeup, we can better protect these vital pollinators for future generations. The full article can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eybCBayP #ButterflyConservation #Genetics #Biodiversity

Tmesipteris oblanceolata subsp. Linearifolia, a plant species, boasts the largest known eukaryotic genome at 160.75 Gbp/1C. This discovery underscores significant variations in genome size across species and challenges the notion that complexity correlates with genome size (C-value paradox). The species' genome expansion primarily results from high chromosomal numbers (octoploidy) and extensive repetitive DNA. Unlike in animals, where large genomes typically stem from repetitive elements, Tmesipteris exhibits unique whole genome multiplication processes. This finding highlights the diversity in genomic architecture among plants and its implications for understanding evolutionary and ecological adaptations in exceptionally large genomes. To know more follow Scioverleaf and click the link below https://lnkd.in/gmz4CZNt

Keep informed with the newest in plant biology research through ScienceCast.org's daily digests, part of arXiv Labs where researchers share short audio presentations of their work. Featured today: "Natural variation in circadian period correlates with diverse phenological measures in Boechera stricta" by McMinn, Salmela, and Weinig. Delve into the impact of circadian rhythms on plant phenology. Connect for more academic insights! #PlantBiology #Research #ScienceCast #arXivLabs https://lnkd.in/eUkqpbdE

EARLY IMMUNE SYSTEM IN LUCA? The nature of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), its age and its impact on the Earth system have been the subject of vigorous debate across diverse disciplines, often based on disparate data and methods. Age estimates for LUCA are usually based on the fossil record, varying with every reinterpretation. The nature of LUCA’s metabolism has proven equally contentious, with some attributing all core metabolisms to LUCA, whereas others reconstruct a simpler life form dependent on geochemistry. Researchers infer that LUCA lived ~4.2 Ga (4.09–4.33 Ga) through divergence time analysis of pre-LUCA gene duplicates, calibrated using microbial fossils and isotope records under a new cross-bracing implementation. Phylogenetic reconciliation suggests that LUCA had a genome of at least 2.5 Mb (2.49–2.99 Mb), encoding around 2,600 proteins, comparable to modern prokaryotes. New results suggest LUCA was a prokaryote-grade anaerobic acetogen that possessed an early immune system. Although LUCA is sometimes perceived as living in isolation, we infer LUCA to have been part of an established ecological system. The metabolism of LUCA would have provided a niche for other microbial community members and hydrogen recycling by atmospheric photochemistry could have supported a modestly productive early ecosystem. The findings have been published in Nature: https://lnkd.in/eHwKeQe6

As organisms diversified on planet Earth, some branches of the tree of life became exceptionally diverse, others far less so. Still others went extinct. Why evolution favored certain groups over others is a long-standing question in evolutionary science. Beetles are the poster child of evolutionary success: about 400,000 species are known—about a quarter of all described lifeforms—and potentially hundreds of thousands more await discovery. The beauty and diversity of beetles enchanted a young Charles Darwin and were the teenage fascination of Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-discoverers of evolution by natural selection. But why are there so many beetles? One widely held view is that beetles gained an ecological advantage by evolving elytra, the hardened shield-like structures that protect the flight wings, enabling them to live in many different niches that other insects can't access. Another hypothesis is that beetles co-evolved with flowering plants. As these plants diversified, so too did the beetles that feed on them. https://lnkd.in/gWjZGWnh