Ella Sieradzki

It depends on the sample type. In soil there are a few buffers people use, like PBS or potassium citrate. It’s anyone’s guess as to the real yield, and it would depend on mineral types and humics content.

According to the site it’s due to a governmental funding freeze. That’s not likely to improve in the next couple of years, sadly.
ENA is very convenient and syncs with NCBI.

A. You're alive! 🍻
B. counter-counterargument, viruses in the <0.2 µ fraction were lytic at some point and therefore definitely had an effect on the microbial community.
C. There's no guarantee that viral contigs from bulk DNA are doing anything. They could be lysogens or just junk DNA.

Absolutely. No method perfect. But to make overarching statements about what drives viral communities or what viruses drive in general when you’re looking at a random 2-3% of a non perfect sample is just ridiculous.

Viromes outperform total metagenomes in revealing the spatiotemporal patterns of agricultural soil viral communities AbstractViruses are abundant yet understudied members of soil environments that influence terrestrial biogeochemical cycles. Here, we characterized the dsD

If you want to see just how big the difference is, I recommend this paper:
doi.org/10.1038/s413...

This is the equivalent of making overarching statements about microbial community based on cultured microorganisms. It's just not valid.
The amount of non viral DNA in a bulk metagenome is so overwhelming that no matter how deeply you sequence, you will never get a good representation. 3/n

It's been shown repeatedly that viruses from bulk metagenomes represent at best 2-3% of the viral community found in viromes (size selection for <0.2µ pre-sequencing), and it's not even necessarily the most abundant viruses that are represented in that subsample. 2/n

Soil viral ecology notice: having found myself rejecting paper after paper for the same reason, let me make this clear. If you're trying to draw conclusions about the drivers/effects of the viral community but your data is from bulk metagenomes, not viromes, that's an automatic no from me. 1/n

Frontiers | Editorial: "Proceedings of the RdRp Summit and Advances in RNA Virus Discovery" Following the success of the first meeting, the second RdRp Summit was held on May 11-12, 2025, 40 in Lisbon, Portugal. Two years had passed since the first ...

Provisionally accepted! Proceedings of the 2nd RdRp summit on RNA viruses out in Frontiers in virology. I attended the 1st RdRp summit, was an organizer of the 2nd but broke my leg and had to bail. Hoping to see more virus enthusiasts at the 3rd summit in 2027!
www.frontiersin.org/journals/vir...

Came to learn about polar microbiomes and found myself at the carnaval. Gotta love #PAM2026

Soil is hard to work with, polar areas are hard to work in and viruses are hard to work on, but Gary didn’t let any of these deter him. The full paper is now out in Nature Comms!

Opportunity!
Anybody knows of young marine ecologists (within 7 years from earned PhD) that would like to come to Gothenburg, Sweden, for a nationally funded Assistant Professorship? It is highly competitive but well funded. (1) of (3)

Impressive. I don’t think I’ll be keeping it at lower than -70 so that makes sense.

I’m pretty sure that’s the consensus. Murphy is strong with these freezers.

Yes, I learned the hard way that you should always have sensors and an online alert system. These things always break down on Christmas Eve.

Let's talk -80 freezers:
Recommendations? Dis-recommendations?
What do you suggest prioritising and why?
Bonus points if you have input on buying one in Europe.

* photo of Muffin for cat tax

rdrp.io The official website of the RdRp Summit.

Interested in RNA virus discovery? You can still register for the RdRp summit and attend remotely!
We'll have some really nice talks and cutting edge discussions on best practices and new directions in the field.
rdrp.io
#phagesky #virosky #bioinformatics

EXCITING NEWS🥳! @isme-microbes.bsky.social is now sponsoring 3 travels grants worth EUR 500 each to support early career researchers presenting at the #RdRpSummit2025.
Abstract submissions & registrations are still open!✍️
More info at RdRp.io

Calls for papers from FEMS Microbiology Ecology FEMS Microbiology Ecology, publishing leading research in the microbial ecology community, publishes a variety of thematic issues covering a diverse range of to

Calls for papers from FEMS Microbiology Ecology: Thematic Issue on Ecology of Soil Microorganisms

Editors:
@pbaldrian.bsky.social
@jennihultman.bsky.social
Petr Kohout
Minna Männistö
@tainapennanen.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/femsec/pages...

Submission deadline: 28 November 2025

Will you be at ViBiom? I’ll be there in May 🙂

All this to say, the journey isn't linear. Not even close. It also can't be separated from our private lives. Sometimes life is overwhelming, and all you can do is keep your head above the water and accept help.
You will reap the rewards eventually. The end.

So it was with great joy that when I won the grant, I brought it here with me.
I won't pretend that everything is easy. The transition to faculty is daunting and scary, but my colleagues and friends here are supportive and motivating.
I'm so excited to start mentoring my very own PhD student. 11/n

That's when Aarhus University @au.dk came into the picture. I interviewed with the department of agroecology and flew over for a visit. I've never felt so welcome in academia. Moreover, I felt safe for the first time in months. I was offered a position before my ERC grant interview. 10/n

Throughout all of this I was applying for tenure track jobs. I had some interviews, but no offers. I had made it into the interview stage of the ERC, but in March 2024 I was almost resigned to finding some remote big data job and settling down in a small village in Bretagne. 9/n

Many think that life in Israel went on as usual in 2023 and 2024. Let me tell you, it did not. Even my family in Tel Aviv, arguably one of the safer areas, went in and out of the bomb shelter. I can't even imagine what it was like for those living even slightly farther north or south. 8/n

The ERC kindly extended the deadline by 2 weeks, so I managed the writing and admin by the deadline.
My second year in France was far from productive or happy, but I was blessed with good friends who supported me while I tried to be there for my family in Tel Aviv. 7/n

I felt like my world was collapsing around me. Nothing and nowhere felt safe anymore. Even going to work was terrifying.
A couple of weeks later, with a looming deadline and shattered confidence, I went to England to stay with my cousin. It was there that I felt safe enough to be able to focus. 6/n

worked on setting up preliminary lab experiments and finishing backlog papers.
A few months later, I decided to apply for an ERC starting grant application. It was a long writing process, but I made good headway. The deadline was supposed to be November 1st, 2023. Then came October 7th. 5/n

A couple of months later, when we thought the worst was over, my dad was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease. It's been almost 3 years since the initial diagnosis and only recently did the doctors find a medication that gives him some relief.
I decided to keep pushing anyway, and... 4/n

I got to France in the super hot summer of 2022, received an equally warm welcome from my hosts and lab members, and was so excited for the next two years.
A month into my stay my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately it was caught early, and I was happy to at least be able to fly home. 3/n