Louis Berrios

I need your help to promote the careers of our next generation of scientists and leaders. Im generating a list of awards for as part of my new role chairing BPPs award committee.

MacArthur Foundation Announces 2025 ‘Genius Grant’ Winners

This week, I was awarded a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant. So proud to be included among individuals recognized for “extraordinary originality & dedication in their creative pursuits”. This research has been possible because I collaborate with the most incredible teams.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/a...

Vikos Gorge is the deepest canyon in the world relative to its width — a UNESCO Global Geopark and a natural wonder carved by the Voidomatis River! Thrilled to be out here with @spun.earth mapping endemic fungal networks and sampling in this incredible ecosystem 🇬🇷 #Zagori #VikosGorge #biodiversity

Big congratulations to @spun.earth’s Toby Kiers on being awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant! You may remember Toby from our 2024 selection FLORA FAUNA FUNGA.

You can read the announcement here: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/arts/design/macarthur-foundation-2025-genius-grant-winners.html

Curious about how anthropogenic actions reshape microbial communities and their role in ecosystems and public health? 🌎

I’m looking for a PhD student to join my lab at AU. Admission would be through our Biomedical & Environmental Health Sciences program, which offers five fully funded fellowships.

A catalog of metagenome-assembled genomes from Amazonian forest and pasture soils | Microbiology Resource Announcements Our group previously recovered 64 bacterial and 5 archaeal metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from Amazonian forest and pasture soils and evaluated their genomic traits (1). Here, we formally announc...

Assembling MAGs from Amazonian soils is a challenge, but it has become one of our most useful tools to understand these complex communities. Check out our new paper at MRA @asm.org doi.org/10.1128/mra.... in collaboration with @louberrios.bsky.social @jubgontijo.bsky.social @mykophile.bsky.social

19.3 | Current Conservation Before their ecological relevance and unique properties were revealed to me, my earliest memory of fungi was as a whimsical toadstool in the background of a fairytale book. Growing up, I also saw them...

This is a beautiful volume in the Current Biology magazine about Fungi with gorgeous illustrations! highly recommended 🧡 🍄🍄 🤩 www.currentconservation.org/issues/19-3/

Invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi: belowground insights from South America Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) are essential for nutrient cycling and plant symbiosis, yet their invasions remain understudied, particularly in South America. Large-scale forestry introductions have spr...

New paper!
I am excited about it, since it has some very cool contributions on:
-Status of Invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi
-Definition of what is a invasive mycorhizal 🍄
-Cool picture of trees being brought from Europe in 1920!
Lead by @nahpo.bsky.social! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

Bacteria attached to charcoal could help keep an infamous ‘forever chemical’ out of waterways An environmental engineer explains how his research team is developing a system containing bacteria, biochar and gel to break down pollutants in waterways.

#Bacteria attached to #charcoal could help keep an infamous ‘forever chemical’ out of #waterways ...

| #PCB | #environment | #contamination | #Paraburkholderia | #biochar | Via @theconversation.com

Led by SPUN's @adricorrales.bsky.social, we visited Huila, Colombia with -196°C liquid nitrogen to collect fungal RNA.

RNA offers a look into the function of fungal genes, but it degrades quickly, so all samples had to be frozen immediately.

Full field update from Colombia coming soon.

👏🏾 A big shout out to @spun.earth and the Global Initiative of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment for sponsoring 9 students to attend our conference!

Students who applied for our travel grants, check your email inbox.

@thegsbi.bsky.social @lindolab.bsky.social @carlosbarreto.bsky.social

A genomic view of Earth’s biomes - Nature Reviews Genetics Genome-wide approaches have uncovered the vast microbial and viral diversity across ecosystems. This Review explores advances in metagenomics, single-cell sequencing and functional profiling to elucid...

Microbiome sequencing has come so far in 2 decades. In my PhD— I used TRFLP…. am now doing long read sequencing of entire soil metagenomes! This review was great fun- thanks Gitta Szabó @emileyeloe-fadrosh.bsky.social Tanja Woyke of @jgi.doe.gov

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

Poster on IPBES Nexus Assessment event at New York Climate Week on Thursday Sept 25 at 1:30pm, CURE building 12th floor, 345 Park Ave S

In these trying times, all the more important to keep attention to all the ways in which our world is affected by #climatechange Join us next week at #NYCW for a session on how biodiversity, water, food and health intersect with climate!

Our latest review is now live! Check out our thoughts on how the filamentous lifestyle of Actinomycetes and their ability to make a diverse array of natural products may be connected 👇: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Patterns of Herbivory and Resource Utilization of Tree Seedlings Along an Altitudinal Gradient - Ecosystems In montane areas, climate change can shift tree species distributions upslope over time which can affect forest ecosystem structure and functioning. Seedlings of low-elevation temperate broadleaf tree...

🥁New paper from Northeastern Mtn🏔️ Network❗️The patterns of herbivory & resource utilization vary along elevational gradients & affect tree seedling 🌱 survival, thus shaping species range shifts. @sunyesf.bsky.social @sunyofficial.bsky.social
@appmtnclub.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1007/s100...

Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems - Nature Microbiology Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.

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

#phagesky #phage

Microbial conservation is essential for sustaining ecosystem functions and services | PNAS Microbial conservation is essential for sustaining ecosystem functions and services

Charles Cockell said that “without lions there is life, but without microorganisms there can be no higher life forms” …

Microbial conservation is essential for sustaining ecosystem functions and services | PNAS

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

flyer of a talk by martin nunez

Mycorrhizal symbiosis benefited yield and fruit quality in Cabernet Sauvignon facing high temperatures combined with elevated CO2 in its first productive year - Plant and Soil Aims Our objective was to assess whether mycorrhization could enhance the resilience of young Cabernet Sauvignon in its first year of production to elevated temperatures under current and future atmos...

A little wine with your mycorrhizal symbiosis? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Experimental approaches and key outcomes supporting the Allelopathy Postulates relevant to competitive interactions and the novel weapons hypothesis (NWH). Numbers in red correspond to the 11 postulates summarized in Table 1. The full experimental framework comprises five sequential steps: (a) assess the natural concentrations of a potential allelopathic compound; (b) demonstrate its ability to suppress native vegetation; releasing resources that enhance growth and reproduction of the invader (e.g. light, nutrients, water); (c) confirm that the compound has limited autotoxicity to the invading species; (d) investigate the biogeographical basis of the allelopathic compound as a ‘novel weapon’ by demonstrating that native communities coevolving with the invader in its home range are significantly more resistant to the allelopathic compound compared to those in the introduced (away) range; (e) confirm that genotypes producing higher concentrations of the allelopathic compounds experience a fitness cost in the context of intraspecific competition but gain a fitness advantage under interspecific competition. Investigating the role of soil-mediated interactions (11) is transversal across different components of the framework

Now published in @newphyt.bsky.social, @1pantunes.bsky.social and I review evidence for the "Novel Weapons Hypothesis" and the role of allelopathy during invasion. Bottom line: there is very good reason to be skeptical.
dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Transient microbial architects: tracing the legacy effects of ephemeral taxa during plant microbiome assembly

Current Opinion in Microbiology by @logansuteau.bsky.social et al from @microbialmarie.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The pitfalls of rDNA‐based AMF identification: a comparative analysis of rDNA and protein‐coding genes Intragenomic polymorphism of rDNA in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) has been largely overlooked in ecological and taxonomic studies, and the reliability of nuclear rDNA regions for species ident.....

Most of us use rDNA for community analyses of AM fungi. Intragenomic variation in rDNA of AM fungi can be pretty huge, depending on the region.

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

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Such a delight to share our work on the evolution of a cheese rind fungus in @currentbiology.bsky.social.

This is the fantastic PhD work of @nicolasleonlouw.bsky.social and resulted from amazing collaborations, a wedding proposal(!), an undergrad course, & more!

🧵

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Thrilled to launch yet another #CitizenScience campaign for @fundive-fungi.bsky.social ‪🙃

The campaign' accompanying flyer is published in the open-access platform Zenodo, free to download, share, and cite: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

#UrbanBiodiversity #FunDive #Mycology #Conservation #iNaturalist

Scanning electron microscopy of hyphal ectobiont bacteria within mycelial extracellular matrices

Bacillus subtilis on Basidiomycete fungus Hericium erinaceus

-in Biophysical Reports

doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation

Penicillium solitum over 8 years in a cheese cave => green-to-white shift

@currentbiology.bsky.social from @benwolfe.bsky.social with @kellerlab.bsky.social

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Glad to be part of this team calling on global scientific and conservation communities to get on board to protect microbial life, which sustains all forms of life on our planet.

in @natmicrobiol.nature.com

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

Fig. 3 Resource (here C and water) uptake, transport, and consumption shape resource distribution along the leaf-to-root axis, influencing C partitioning and plant functional traits under changing environmental conditions.

✨ Paper spotlight ✨

(🧵 1/5) Distal to proximal: a continuum of drivers shaping tree growth and carbon partitioning
doi.org/10.1111/nph....