H. B. Beryl Rappaport

Gopher tortoise influence on soil biodiversity is constrained by historical land use - Biodiversity and Conservation Keystone species and ecosystem engineers play critical roles in maintaining and enhancing biodiversity by modifying their environment and creating ecological niches that support a wide range of organi...

Hot off the press! If you’ve ever wondered how ecosystem-engineering gopher tortoises shape soil microbial and nematode communities, this paper is for you! 🐢💚

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thank you @mollyherring.bsky.social for the stunning showcase 😍

Like what you see? Come ExM with us! Let’s flood the internet with microbial marvels 🦠

#ProtistsOnSky #MicroEvoSky 🧪🔬🌍

@dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @erc.europa.eu @embo.org

Some like it hot… by Christoph — ...and feel right at home in a tributary of Hot Springs Creek in LVNP (California, USA), where temperatures range between 49 °C and 65 °C You are now going to learn a little bit about the amoeba, which was sampled at these "hot spots" by Rappaport et al.….

Some like it hot…

by Christoph — ...and feel right at home in a tributary of Hot Springs Creek in LVNP (California, USA), where temperatures range between 49 °C and 65 °C You are now going to learn a little bit about the amoeba, which was sampled at these "hot spots" by Rappaport et al.….

Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of:
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky

Thanks Julia!!

"A newly identified amoeba can survive at the temperature of a medium-well done steak" lol @scifri.bsky.social an apt comparison a hadn't previously considered...

A pleasure chatting about our research led by @hbrappap.bsky.social & with a wonderful team of colleagues.

Scientists find a startling discovery in a national park's hot waters Scientists found a new organism that thrives in a national park's hot waters.

Sometimes life finds a way… like this newly discovered “fire amoeba,” thriving at 145 °F deep in the hot springs of Lassen Volcanic National Park 🌋 Even in the harshest places, life endures. That kind of resilience gives us hope. ✨ #OceanHoptimism #NatureFindsAWay #Extremophiles #Resilience

Delighted to share some coverage of our new preprint (doi.org/10.1101/2025...) from Scientific American

and thank you @sciam.bsky.social @andreatweather.bsky.social for taking the time to chat with @hbrappap.bsky.social and I about why we are so excited about the geothermal 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢

Yes samples were kept at ambient temps so likely we are missing out on any thermophiles that can’t encyst at lower temps - hoping at some point to sequence samples preserved in the field in part because of this!

Thanks nature news for featuring our recent preprint on 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 led by @hbrappap.bsky.social

(check out preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...) #protistsonsky

Awesome, that is good with us :)

Yes, that’s the place! Cool, interested in what you’ve found there

thanks for these musings!

yes we just have multiple filamentous bacteria in the culture, but M. ruber is definitely there and seems to be most abundant based on sequencing!

most likely M. ruber! so interesting, didn’t know that about filamentation! 🍝
& not sure why the file conversions were named that way but the order looks accurate as labeled - Supplemental Movie 1-12

the long thin guys are filamentous bacteria and the clump is moving oddly but I believe it’s just bacterial biofilm

so awesome!

Tbd! We need to redo some staining

thermophilic bacteria!

Thermal Limit for Metazoan Life in Question: In Vivo Heat Tolerance of the Pompeii Worm The thermal limit for metazoan life, expected to be around 50°C, has been debated since the discovery of the Pompeii worm Alvinella pompejana, which colonizes black smoker chimney walls at deep-sea vents. While indirect evidence predicts body ...

I believe within their tubes they can withstand higher temps but the worms themselves max out around 55°C, and temps for reproduction and early dev may be lower - their max tolerance is super interesting though! pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

We are looking into this 👀

A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes The study of temperature limits has transformed our knowledge of the boundaries of life but has been largely focused on bacteria and archaea. We isolated a novel geothermal amoeba, Incendiamoeba casca...

Yes, these movies can be downloaded from the supp materials here! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We will have all sequences up on NCBI with publication for you to take a look! Also really interested in their chaperone network!

And finally all at SyracuseU - @shaharsu.bsky.social @jessniblo.bsky.social for protein analyses, @rmshepherd.bsky.social for culturing, & @oliverio.bsky.social for leading this effort with me!

@xtremevirusprof.bsky.social @nachopus.bsky.social and team at PSU and Gordon Wolfe at Chico for sampling and extremophile expertise

@lauraakatz.bsky.social and Godwin Ani at Smith for phylogenomics

@fmschu.bsky.social New Lineages of Life group at JGI with Tomas Tyml for culturing, seq prep, & biogeography, and Kurt LaButti also at LBNL for bioinformatics

@fmikus.bsky.social @dudinlab.bsky.social at Geneva and @gautamdey.bsky.social at EMBL for beautiful U-ExM

So grateful to all collaborators on this huge effort!
@mullinslab.bsky.social at UCSF with Natalie Petek, @samjlord.bsky.social, and @skruberk.bsky.social now at Gonzaga with Ethan MacVicar for microscopy & motility analyses

𝘐. 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 makes us think about which factors set the upper temp limit for euks and what the physical limit is - are there relatives that grow even hotter? How do euks adapt to extreme conditions?
🌋🦠

We assembled the genome of 𝘐. 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 and found enriched genes that may be associated with thermophily - many involved in signaling and protein stability. 𝘐. 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 proteins also have higher predicted melting temps and higher net surface charges than 𝘝. 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘴.

We tracked the motility of 𝘐. 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 across temp and found it is active up to 64°C (movie here), with most directed motion from 55-64°C🏃‍♀️! It seems to use the vermiform state to travel quickly and the amoebiform state to explore space.