Benjamin Wolfe

We are on the lookout for postdocs for two different projects at the intersection of ecology, evolution, and the human microbiome.

See thread for more information and reach out!

Huge thanks to the amazing team at @currentbiology.bsky.social for highlighting fungi in this special issue. Many excellent reviews and perspectives from so many mycological heroes. Lots of great material to use in teaching/outreach. 🍄

We are hiring a postdoctoral scholar to join us in the sometime in the next ~6 months. oliveriolab.org with a focus on microbial eukaryotes in extreme environments.

Please email w/CV if you'd like to chat. Official ad soon.

#MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky #ProtistsOnSky

Schematic of lab and field experiments testing for yeast fitness with and without killer viruses. Panel A depicts a classical fitness assay in which a yeast with a virus (or cured of the virus) is cultured with a viral toxin-resistant reference strain and the number of doublings is compared between the two yeasts. Panel B diagrams field chambers made of 12-ml tubes in which a membrane holding yeast cells lines the mouth of the tube; the tube is then buried next to a tree. Panel C depicts a field experiment with the chambers. Yeasts hosting (or cured of) viruses are mixed with virus toxin-resistant reference cells, put onto chamber membranes, and incubated in soil for fifteen days. The relative ratios of tested and reference strains are then used as a proxy for fitness.

Check out my latest paper on fitness costs and benefits of hosting a killer virus if you're a yeast in the forest!

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

Embracing the systems complexity of microbial ecology and evolution: call for papers | mSystems Microbial ecology and evolution are broad disciplines that seek to understand the underlying processes that drive the diversification, distributions, and dynamics of microbial cells, populations, comm...

Send us your exciting microbial ecology and evolution manuscripts!

Embracing the systems complexity of microbial ecology and evolution: call for papers | mSystems journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Get in dorks, we're going protesting!

STAND UP FOR SCIENCE WITH US ON MARCH 7TH, 2025
WASHINGTON DC AND EVERY STATE CAPITOL

Because science is for everyone!

Find us at standupforscience2025.org

#standupforscience2025 #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

Get in Dorks, we are going protesting.

STAND UP FOR SCIENCE. MARCH 7th 12-4pm. DC AND YOUR STATE CAPITALS.

More information to come.

Intraspecies associations from strain-rich metagenome samples https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.636498v1

a woman in a black and white jacket is sitting at a table in a diner . Alt: a woman in a black and white jacket is sitting at a table in a diner saying "There, I said it."

And Academic T&P committees, maybe take a beat & consider how the continuous & unsustainable push for CV conspicuous production has been a competitive inhibitor of scientists & scholars being engaged in their communities in meaningful ways as a bulwark to the shitstorm happening now.

That's how it's done! Nice and easy.
Good job Mycological Society of America.

Interested in doing a postdoc at the intersection of microbial ecology and agricultural engineering? We are recruiting for a collaborative project with me and Chris Voigt, Darcy McRose, Dave DesMarias, and Sixian You. See project announcement and reach out: jwafs.mit.edu/projects/202...

‘These Cheeses Have a Life, They Have a Story’ After a microbiology workshop, cheesemakers and mongers have a new way to talk about their tasty, funky products.

Our NSF-funded basic research in microbiology is providing useful knowledge/training/data for US food businesses that support rural economies. This workshop was one of the most rewarding projects I've worked on as a scientist. now.tufts.edu/2025/01/28/t...

(Impressive for New England)

A red Amanita fruiting with leaf litter around

How does variation in ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity affect tree growth? What are the knowledge gaps to more fully answering this question?

See my review out today in Fungal Ecology: doi.org/10.1016/j.fu...

Gentle reminder that if you truly value diversity in the workforce, top down executive orders may/will change implementation but it shouldn’t change your dedication to building the best possible team/group/cohort/generation of researchers

Please stop by when you are in town!!

Congrats, Vaughn! Grateful for your leadership and vision.

I am super excited to work with @fungaldreamteam.bsky.social‬
as co-EIC at Fungal Ecology! We have amazing editors who prioritize high-quality science and careful review of your manuscripts. Please consider sending your work to Fungal Ecology in 2025!

Have questions about #bioinformatics, #genomics, #evolution or stuck on a project? 🧬💻

I want to help!

Happy to discuss data, figures, writing, academia/industry or chatting just for kicks—no strings attached

Drop questions below, DM, or schedule a meeting

Science together is better than alone 🙌

Diversity within species: interpreting strains in microbiomes Nature Reviews Microbiology - Large-scale metagenomic analyses are vastly increasing the rate of discovery of variation within species but they are also leading to scientific and semantic...

Everyone talks about "strains", but what are they? Within the lab, we often come back to the review "Diversity within species: interpreting strains in microbiomes" by Thea Van Rossum (2020) when discussing at which phylogenetic resolution we do see different signals

www.nature.com/artic...

A researcher on a boardwalk in a DANK hawaiian forest on Molokai.

RP PLS! Iʻm hiring 3 postdocs at U Hawaiʻi to study yeast diversity and evolution, marine fungi, and the genomics of microbiomes in experimental foodwebs. All of these projects have existing datasets and LATITUDE to pursue individual interests and "blue sky" ideas www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5d7u4...

We are excited to join this growing community!

Microbialfoods.org is an education and outreach platform for fermented food consumers, producers, enthusiasts, and scientists. Please check out our website for accessible information about the microbes that make delicious ferments!

I really enjoyed chatting with Mark about the ecology of fermented food microbial communities!

Apples Have Never Tasted So Delicious. Here’s Why Apple experts divide time into “before Honeycrisp” and “after Honeycrisp,” and apples have never tasted so good

Things get better through long-term thinking, investments in research, wide and welcoming collaborations, honest education, mentorship and sponsorship, not catastrophizing failure, justice, hope, and solidarity. xoxoxo www.scientificamerican.com/article/appl...
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Research Lab Technician II at USC Learn more about applying for Research Lab Technician II at USC

We're hiring a lab technician to help with high-throughput culturing and other aspects of our research. Please help spread the word. Find out more and apply using the link below.

Requisition ID: REQ20156462

usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

We had fun thinking about the future of fermented foods in this review for @currentbiology.bsky.social

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

Genomics and synthetic community experiments uncover the key metabolic roles of acetic acid bacteria in sourdough starter microbiomes | mSystems This study is a comprehensive genomic and ecological survey of acetic acid bacteria (AAB) isolated from sourdough starters. By combining comparative genomics with manipulative experiments using synthe...

Happy to share our effort to understand the role of acetic acid bacteria in sourdough starter microbiomes using genomics + synthetic experiments! Led by @hbrappap.bsky.social and w/ @benwolfe.bsky.social @nimshika.bsky.social and @saerobe.bsky.social

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
#microsky

Will brie and Camembert cheeses go extinct? Here’s what scientists say. Worries over French cheeses have spread since a study warned they’re “on the verge of extinction.” But a future without brie is not yet in the cards.

The Camembertpocalypse is fake news! Also proud of my “sweet buttery flatulence” quote. Enjoy your cheese and worry about the big stuff!

www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/03...

Study Featuring AI-Generated Giant Rat Penis Retracted, Journal Apologizes A peer-reviewed study featured nonsensical AI images including a giant rat penis in the latest example of how generative AI has seeped into academia.

I knew long before the rat with a giant penis that Frontiers journals are bad for science. My lab does not publish there, review for them, and we almost never cite Frontiers papers. If we all do this, Frontiers will fade and science will be stronger.

www.vice.com/en/article/4...

Bacterial–fungal interactions promote parallel evolution of global transcriptional regulators in a... The ISME Journal - Bacterial–fungal interactions promote parallel evolution of global transcriptional regulators in a widespread Staphylococcus species

Very cool study! Awesome to see so many pairs tested and a thoughtful theoretical framework. Our recent paper on evolution with biotic interactions in the cheese rind model might be relevant. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Trying to figure out where our study fits in your excellent Fig 6