Aldo Arellano 🏳️‍🌈

Viral Dark Matter: Illuminating Protein Function, Ecology, and Biotechnological Promises Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and play central roles in shaping microbiomes and influencing ecosystem functions. Yet, most viral genes remain uncharacterized, comprising w...

Viral "dark matter" dominates the virosphere. In this review by me & @karthik-a.bsky.social, we synthesize what's known, highlight major gaps, and outline paths forward for illuminating viral protein functions in diverse ecosystems.

GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.

Do you teach #rstats? Do your students complain about how lame and old-fashioned dplyr is? Don't worry: I have the solution for you: github.com/hadley/genzp....

genzplyr is dplyr, but bussin fr fr no cap.

Workshop poster

Excited to be at ICTS for the school on Geometry, Mechanics and the Physics of Growth, co-organized with Ganga Prasath (IITM) and @joelmarthelot.bsky.social (Aix-Marseille)! Fantastic start with a lecture on continuum elasticity by @abigailplummer.bsky.social (BU)

A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...

Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸

There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

I am especially happy to share first authorship with an amazing undergraduate mentee in the lab, Journey Prack! We also collaborated on the artwork featured as the graphical abstract to our paper!

We found surprising consistency in the bacterial taxa positively correlated with host fitness regardless of highly disparate life stages and inocula used in our experiments. We highlight Acetobacteraceae and Actinobacteriota, well studied group in insect-microbe symbiosis

We asked:
1) Do parental mosquitoes pass along a repeatable and beneficial community to offspring?
2) Can larvae adaptively shift the microbial community of their rearing environment?
3) Does prior conditioning of bacterial communities by conspecifics enhance fitness in recipient germ-free hosts?

While the pitcher plant system is a great model in which to explore this, we think that "external microbiome curation" may be an underappreciated modality by which hosts with horizontally-acquired and non-specific microbiota may still "select" better symbionts

Host-mediated niche construction of bacterial communities in an aquatic microecosystem Abstract. Microbes coordinate homeostasis in host-associated and environmental ecosystems alike, but the connectivity of these biomes is seldom considered.

Excited to share our new paper out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social. We asked if environmental microbial communities can be adaptively modulated by host species that transiently acquire their symbionts from the environment #SymbioSky #MicrobiomeSky
doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Selection and transmission of the gut microbiome alone can shift mammalian behavior Nature Communications - Here, the authors present evidence that the gut microbiome alone, without changes in the host genome, can shape how animals respond to selection, identifying a bacterium and...

We selected the laziest mouse at each round to inoculate the next batch of germfree mice: over rounds of selection and passaging, behavior shifted without changes to the mouse genome: rdcu.be/eM3rO
🦠🧫

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...

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...

Environmental Stress Shapes Bacterial Community Structure and Function Through Interactive Abiotic Effects Microbial communities play critical roles in ecosystem functioning across a wide range of environmental conditions. The physiological stress imposed by temperature, pH and resource levels can shape t...

📝 Excited to share our new paper in Molecular Ecology! 📝

We tested how multiple environmental stressors influence plant-associated microbial communities.

🌟 Each stressor mattered on its own, but their interactions often produced very different outcomes.🌟

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

Check out our new review on how to measure thermal tolerance! 🐟🌡️🧪

We're helping @hollybik.bsky.social's group looking at features of a ubiquitous genus in the context of symbioses:

Pseudoalteromonas is a novel symbiont of marine invertebrates that exhibits broad patterns of phylosymbiosis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

eLife Latest: New policy allows for name changes in published papers eLife has announced a policy which enables authors, editors and reviewers to retroactively change their name in published papers and accompanying decision letters.

Visibility matters in academia.

Our name-change policy gives authors who change their names an unobtrusive way to update their papers published in eLife, meaning they can get recognition for their contributions.
elifesciences.org/inside-elife...

Celebrating little wins in a time of great uncertainty as I submit manuscript revisions for the final chapter of my PhD while en route to a training course at Wood’s Hole. It’s moments like these that keep the imposter syndrome at bay!

I’m thrilled to share my first review about microbial ecology + mosquito-borne disease control! Bacteria block pathogen development in the mosquito gut, but which bacteria will produce long-lasting results in the field? Let’s think about colonization and persistence in the mosquito gut! (1/4)

Excited to read this review led by @holly-nichols.bsky.social highlighting the importance of incorporating microbial ecology in microbe-based mosquito control strategies! Congrats!

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward?
At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below
The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

Beautiful new review paper in preprint bridging microbial ecology and classic ecology led by Maggie Vogel, @olimeacock.bsky.social and @annasophieweiss.bsky.social, also by @juliensluneau.bsky.social and @lambdapp.bsky.social from our lab (not me :)) ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Protect transgender scientists Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGnC) people are a primary target of the Trump administration. Multiple executive orders seek to erase TGnC protections; mandate denial of gender identity; and ba...

Protect Trans Scientists.

cowritten with a lot of amazing people (I tagged those I could find but there are so many more incredible folks)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@thepunkscientist.bsky.social @jlw-ecoevo.bsky.social @bfrancescol.bsky.social @drsueishaq.bsky.social

Just left the Animal-Microbe Symbioses GRC feeling grateful for this research community and its big heart...at a time when academia/science are under attack in the U.S. and when actual wars are raging, and people dying, the vibe reminded how the"lingua franca" that is science bridges the divides.

Started a starter pack for the presenters and attendees of the 2025 Animal-Microbe Symbiosis Gordon Research Conference. Let me know if I should add (or remove) you!

go.bsky.app/Pnzz1R9

U.S. researchers are speaking up for science in local newspapers Through two grassroots efforts, more than 80 op eds have been published in news outlets across the country

U.S. researchers are speaking up for science in local newspapers | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

Postdoctoral Associate MIT - Postdoctoral Associate - Cambridge MA 02139

‼️I'm looking for a postdoc‼️ Come join effort in using metagenomes to quantify microbial catabolic potential and carbon substrate availability at the ecosystem level. We seek to understand evolutionary forces shaping the carbon cycle. Part of ccomp-stc.org

careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

What is common knowledge in your field, but. shocks outsiders?

>90% of mosquito species (3700+) do not spread pathogens to humans.

Hawaiian caterpillar patrols spiderwebs camouflaged in insect prey’s body parts Lepidoptera is the most herbivorous of all the insect orders, with predatory caterpillars globally comprising less than 0.13% of the nearly 200,000 moth and butterfly species. Here, we report a specie...

Cool insect #NaturalHistory paper in @science.org!
🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛
“Hawaiian caterpillar patrols spiderwebs camouflaged in insect prey’s body parts” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A little Euplokamis dunlapae cteno with its tentacles out and loose, making some little rainbows with its ctenes for pride.

Happy Pride Month! You know who doesn't change their brand image to rainbow just for June?

Ctenophores. They make their gay little rainbows all year. It's a Pride parade in the ocean every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 366 every four years.

🦑🐙

Happy pride to me and to you and to the bisexual bats and the gay giraffes and the lesbian albatrosses, and the trans fish and everybody else. Happy pride.