David Hoey

Close up photo of two Sphagnum moss spore capsules. They look a little like match sticks.

Sphagnum moss spore capsules. #Newfoundland, Canada.
#moss #bryophyte #fungifriends #hiking

Pathway to Independence Support postdocs on the job market Line drawing of a person at a bench transitioning to working at a desk Development

Apply for our Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs in #devbio and #stemcell research during the transition to their first group leader position: www.biologists.com/grants/devel...

Application deadline: 2 February 2026.

Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes - Nature Analysis of eukaryotic gene sequences using a relaxed molecular clock methodology indicate that eukaryotes emerged 3.0–2.25 billion years ago as a result of mitochondrial endosymbiosis with complex ar...

Our latest, led by the inimitable Chris Kay "Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes" in which we used gene duplications to test hypotheses of eukaryogenesis. TLDR? They're all wrong. With @tweethinking.bsky.social @anya1.bsky.social @ssolo.bsky.social Davide Pisani

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Motivated by a seminar from @tomthirkell.bsky.social, I've delved back into my image archives of mycorrhizal fungi in random plant species. This beautifully bunchy fungal arbuscule in a buttercup root needed sharing!🔬🏵️
#mycosky #fungi #microscopy #outreach

The hidden danger of Biorender

(& the death of scientific illustration)

A short thread 🧵

With the 50-year rise of Arabidopsis as the most studied plant, is it time for its downfall?

Let’s investigate it’s history and outlook 🧵

Box 1. (shortened, full legend in paper): Key developments in understanding the role of CLE signalling in plant development. This scheme represents a summary on the selected latest advances in CLE signalling. (A) In a series of publications, Yuki Hirakawa and his team (Takahashi et al., 2021, 2023) characterized the CLE pathway in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha that positively controls cell divisions via repressing the transcription factor JINGASA. (B) In Arabidopsis, CLV3/CLV1 signalling in the shoot was found to be buffering auxin-dependent development under different thermal conditions (John et al., 2023). (C) Research from several teams showed that the BAM3/CLE pathway is crucial for root protophloem development (Hu et al., 2018, 2022; Qian et al., 2022; Carbonnel et al., 2023). Moreover, the study by Carbonnel et al. (2023) identified an uncharacterized Arabidopsis CLE33 gene that acted in concert with CLE45 via BAM3 in root protophloem development.

🌱 EXPERT VIEW 🌱

In all land plants, small secreted peptides belonging to the CLE family move from cell to cell and activate their cognate receptors to control a plethora of developmental processes - Cornelis & Hazak

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 @hazaklab.bsky.social

Come and do a PhD on 'Genome duplication, extinction and diversification in the evolution of flowering plants' with myself @jameswclark.bsky.social and Ilia Leitch @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and join the @wgdip.bsky.social studying rediploidisation. Apply: tinyurl.com/26pmfvvc by Jan 8

MpNPR modulates lineage-specific oil body development and defence against gastropod herbivory in Marchantia polymorpha https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.17.688000v1

Systemic and local regulation of root growth by vascular trehalose 6-phosphate is correlated with re-allocation of primary metabolites between shoots and roots https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.13.688188v1

New light on old stones: a fossil #fungus in #symbiosis with one of the oldest known land plants

@chistinesd.bsky.social, et al.

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

@dromius.bsky.social @ffercoq.bsky.social #PlantScience

Summary also available in French and Spanish.

This is a remarkable study describing a new fungal species in a 407 million year old plant - Rugososporomyces lavoisierae Strullu-Derrien and Schornack sp. nov - using some amazing technology. Worth a read 👇

4th Genetics Society Non-Seed Plant Group Meeting 2025 | John Innes Centre Supported by the Genetics Society, the Non-Seed Plant Sectional Interest Group brings together UK researchers studying all aspects of plant biology using species outside of seed-bearing plants…

Only two days left to register for the UK NonSeed meeting (Dec 12th, Norwich). We’re still accepting flash talks!! www.jic.ac.uk/event/4th-ge...

I had some problems getting persistent expression of the construct over generations, maybe some silencing. Might need to codon-optimize for the system, or play around with promoters/terminators, but it was definitely initially promising!

Antagonism between blue and red light-signalling controls thallus flatness in Marchantia polymorpha https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687525v1

Fern and gymnosperm SPCH/MUTE and FAMA can regulate multiple cell fate transitions during stomatal development https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687565v1

Antagonism between blue and red light-signalling controls thallus flatness in Marchantia polymorpha https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687525v1

these are indeed gorgeous!

Left, a zoomed out image of the habit of the green branching lycophytes Oxroadia. Right, a zoomed in image of the highly branched rooting system

Huge congratulations @jeremywyman.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for publishing the results of your masters thesis @annbot.bsky.social
The work includes a new reconstruction of the Carboniferous isoetalean Oxroadia by the brilliant @palaeojules.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

#palaeobotany #palaeontology #plantscience #scicomm @instmolplantsci.bsky.social @annbot.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/aob/advance-... 🧵2/2

We have an exciting PhD position in our lab to explore phototropin receptor diversity in Begonia. If you’re interested in plant photobiology and receptor signalling, we’d love to hear from you! Deadline for expressions of interest: 20 December 2025.

advert text as bitmap

picture of the Schornacklab team

Plz RP. Come join us at @slcuplants.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk to study effector-targeted plant processes impacting plant cell biology and development.
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/post-do...
www.schornacklab.net

Sooo happy to see this preprint out 🍄☘️!

Congratulations @leocastanedo.bsky.social @katharinamel1.bsky.social et al. !

It has been a long journey, from developing ericoid-mycorrhizae in the lab (Leo) to the genetics in Marchantia (Katharina), and many other details (#teamwork)

Symbiotic diversification relies on an ancestral gene network in plants Symbioses have been fundamental to colonization of terrestrial ecosystems by plants and their evolution. Emergence of the ancient arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis was followed by the diversification o...

1/ It is my pleasure to share the latest preprint of the team: "Symbiotic diversification relies on an ancestral gene network in plants"

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Here, we identified and functionally validated a novel master regulator of intracellular symbioses!

A thread ...
#PlantScience

David standing by large projector screen with images of Isoetes plants

Thanks @wickellomics.bsky.social for the brilliant @instmolplantsci.bsky.social seminar! Fascinating study of CAM evolution and I’m always excited for all things Isoetes.

New publication by Juan Carlos De la Concepcion, Nick Irwin, & @plantophagy.bsky.social at the GMI from @oeaw.bsky.social revealed that Exo70 undergoes changes in electrostatic charge, causing it to break from its original complex & take on new functions.

Read more: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/n...

Photo of the leafy shoots of a Selaginella. It has two kinds of leaves, those that are spreading and those closely appressed to the stem. This species also has leaves that are silvery and those that are green. Photo by Scott Zona CC BY-NC 2.0.

Many species of Selaginella (#Selaginellaceae) have two kinds of leaves (microphylls): Spreading, distichously arranged leaves and a second kind of leaf appressed to the stem. This is Selaginella picta. Classic #anisophylly! #TropicalBotany #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Paraphymatoceros luguhuensis.

Large-scale #hornwort plastomes unlock RNA editing, new species, and diversification history.

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
by Xu et al.

@WileyPlantSci

🌱 Open PhD Position in Plant EvoDevo 🌱 Thinking about a PhD in plant evodevo? The Becker Research Group (JLU Giessen, Germany) has a fully funded 4-year PhD position in the ICIPS II research unit! 🎓 📍 Where? Gießen, Germany – great research environment & vibrant plant science network.

Fig. 1. Diversity of leaf symbiotic structures.

Léa Ninzatti, Marie-Françoise Jardinaud, and Aurélien Carlier review current knowledge of hereditary leaf symbiosis in tropical plants and explore hypotheses regarding mechanisms that enable these highly specific interactions: https://doi.org/10.1094/PBIOMES-11-24-0111-RVW