Joana Krause Massaguer

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Our new paper is out today in @commsbio.nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com 🚨

🔗https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08524-8

We studied how two Mediterranean bryozoan species respond to ocean acidification & warming using a natural underwater CO₂ vent as a climate change lab. 🌊🧫
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For further insight, check out doi.org/10.1016/j.pr... and
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦠 🪱

📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

Morphology wise, P. noduliferae has an overlall flattened shape, transverse surface folds and a flagellar apparatus, which is located at the apical end of the cell and contains two flagella (anterior and posterior) that move in a whip-like motion.
📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

The Platyproteum genus had been formerly assigned to the Apicomplexa, but was later demostrated by Mathur and colleagues that it actually branched off from the base of the chrompodellid taxa and apicomplexan clade. P. noduliferae is sister to P. vivax (Yokouchi et al 2022).

Platyproteum noduliferae is a marine alveolate, discovered in the intestinal tract of the host Phascolosoma noduliferum (a peanut worm🥜🪱 ) in the western coast of Hok kaido, Japan by Yokouchi et al #Midweekmicrobe
📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Lucky to have @fonamental.bsky.social as our PI!!😊

Last week we attended the Jornades de Biologia Evolutiva, organized by the @scb.iec.cat 🧫

@matteoagazzi.bsky.social and @rociomozo.bsky.social did a great job presenting their advances on their coral HMW and HiC data generation and Suessiales de novo transcriptomics projects🧬🤩

Keep it up folks!☺️

Hey you, hurry up! You're just in time for a trip to the Late Cretaceous🌍 🦖
Sea levels are high and dinosaurs rule the Earth… but we’re here for a different kind of dino.

This #MidweekMicrobe, meet the fossil dinoflagellate Desmocysta hadra!🦠 ⛏️

With the help of @bradweilerdives.bsky.social and @fonamental.bsky.social !!

Today we have been celebrating Biodiversity day at #UIBiodiversityDay2025 in Palma de Mallorca with talks from @rociomozo.bsky.social, @jnonell.bsky.social, @fonamental.bsky.social and a poster presentation from @joanakrause.bsky.social

🙏 Thanks to all co-authors: Tatsuya Unuma, Joana Krause-Massaguer (@joanakrause.bsky.social‬), and Javier del Campo (@fonamental.bsky.social / @delcampolab.bsky.social)!

𝘈𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘴 is named for its host (𝘈𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘴 𝘫𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴), while the species epithet 𝘨𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘢 draws from the Japanese pop icon Gudetama, a lazy egg, highlighting the parasite’s link to the ovaries. The name captures both ecological context and cultural ties to Japan 🇯🇵

🌊 𝘈𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘢’s close relationship to these marine host–associated clades has interesting implications for apicoplast evolution, which we hope to explore further in the future ☀️

🧬 rrn operon phylogeny revealed this parasite to be closely related to apicomplexans of marine fish 🐟 (ichthyocolids) and corals 🪸(corallicolids), while organelle phylogenetics hint at a closer relationship with Eleutheroschizon, an apicomplexan associated with a marine Polychaete 🪱

The Sea Cucumber‐Infecting Parasite Apostichocystis gudetama gen. nov. sp. nov. Expands Marine‐Host‐Specific Clade of Apicomplexans Unknown ellipsoid bodies, later classified as apicomplexan cysts, are prevalent in the ovaries of Japanese sea cucumbers (Apostichopus japonicus), where they can lead to lower fecundity in infected i....

🆕 Out now in JEM (@jeukmicro.bsky.social‬)! Using rrn gene and organelle phylogenies from recovered cysts, we describe 𝘈𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘢, an apicomplexan parasite found in the ovaries of the Japanese sea cucumber 🥚 🥒 🇯🇵 dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeu.... #ProtistsOnSky

Eleutheroschizon duboscqi is a marine protococcidian that parasites the polychaete Scoloplos arminger🪱 . It grows epicellularly, enclosed in a two-membrane parasitophorous sac derived from the host cell, that ends in a protein-rich tail #Midweekmicrobe
📷 Valigurová et al. 2015

What a week, huh? For those who missed it, the Iberian Peninsula experienced a power outage this Monday that lasted 12 hours!
Luckily for us, this #MidweekMicrobe brings in an expert in alternative energy generation: the foraminifera Hauerina diversa🌿 ☀️

📷 François Le Coze

🌟 Taken together, we suggest fireworms are a reservoir and potential vector for corallicolids, moving parasites between coral hosts via feces 🪱💩🪸. This deepens our understanding of coral reef host-parasite interactions and reveals exciting new corallicolid ecology!

Fireworms are a reservoir and potential vector for coral-infecting apicomplexans Abstract. Corals (Cnidaria; Anthozoa) play critical roles as habitat-forming species with a wide range, from warm shallow-water tropical coral reefs to col

🚨🧵 Out now in ISMEJ (@ismepublications.bsky.social)!
We find abundant corallicolid sequences within bearded fireworms (𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘢) across reefs and years in Curaçao 🇨🇼!

🪱🪸 This is the first report of corallicolids inside a non-anthozoan host!

#ProtistsOnSky #MicroSky #SymbioSky #Corals

So today, let's celebrate all dragons - big, small, from the ones found in old legends to the ones that we find under microscopes🐉 🔬
See the full paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.pr...
And more on the Catalan Sant Jordi tradition:
www.barcelona.cat/culturapopul...
www.barcelona.cat/santjordi/en...

Phylogenetic and molecular analysis confirm D. pallida to be a new reticulomyxid species, closely related to Reticulomyxa filosa Nauss, Haplomyxa saranae Dellinger and Wobo gigas.
Figure from Wylezich et al. 2014.

D. pallida has two possible life cycles. These include small cells, large plasmodia and encysted stages.
📷 Wylezich et al. 2014

Dracomyxa pallida (literally "pale dragon slime") was described by Wylezich et al. in Protist (2014). Unique features like tripodal pediculated cysts and no known cleansing process led to the creation of a new genus within the Reticulomyxidae family.
📷 Wylezich et al. 2014

Feliç #SantJordi! In Catalunya, today we celebrate love, literature and dragons, exchanging books and roses🐉 🌹 📖 . Honoring the dragon of the legend of Sant Jordi, today’s #Midweekmicrobe is Dracomyxa pallida, a giant ameboid freshwater foraminifer #ProtistsOnSky
📷 Wylezich et al. 2014

Many of you may be celebrating Easter—if so, happy Easter! 🐣🐰

For today’s #MidweekMicrobe, we’ll go egg hunting with a model organism in biomedicine—a well-known star behind two Nobel-winning discoveries—the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila!

📷 @fmikus.bsky.social

This past Monday was World Health Day —which often makes us think of big threats: pandemics, heart disease, climate change...
But what about a microscopic protist that accidentally eats the human brain? Meet 𝘕𝘢𝘦𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘪 🧵 👇 #MidweekMicrobe
📷 www.cdc.gov/naegleria/ab...

We hypothesize they are spreading the apicomplexans through their feces as they feed on the 🪸 colony.
@ambonacolta.bsky.social and I give a huge shout out to our collaborator labs at CARMABI in Curaçao, @delcampolab.bsky.social, @pjkeelinglab.bsky.social, and Dr. Candace Grimes.

Fireworms (Hermodice carunculata) are a reservoir and potential vector for coral-infecting apicomplexans Corals (Cnidaria; Anthozoa) play critical roles as habitat-forming species with a wide range, from warm shallow-water tropical coral reefs to cold-water ecosystems [1-3]. They also represent a complex...

🚨New preprint🚨 Here we provide the first evidence for a non-anthozoan host of Corallicolids: the bearded fire worm (Hermodice carunculata) 🪱🔥 #ProtistsOnSky #Symbiosky #CoralReefs