del Campo Lab

10/
Huge thanks to this amazing team! @fonamental.bsky.social @polcapdevila.bsky.social @elpiratavell.bsky.social @medrecover.bsky.social over.bsky.social @icmcsic.bsky.social @szndohrn.bsky.social @ub.edu @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social
#MedCalRes @ageinves.bsky.social @cienciagob.bsky.social

9/
Bryozoans are key habitat-formers, yet often overlooked in climate research.
Our work shows they’re at risk under future ocean conditions.
🌊 We need more long-term, multi-stressor studies in natural settings. Stay tuned for the ongoing HOLOCHANGE and MedAcidWarm projects!

8/
This is the first study to document long-term microbiome and skeletal responses to combined ocean acidification & warming in bryozoans in the wild.
We reveal:
✅ Complex, species-specific strategies
⚠️ Signs of vulnerability under future ocean conditions

7/
What about long-term effects?
We monitored Pentapora populations over 5 years:
📉 Bryozoan cover declined
☠️ Necrosis increased
🌡️ Warming & acidification together accelerated mortality

6/
But not all are good news...
We also observed:
📉 Loss of key microbial genera
☠️Rise of opportunists & anaerobes
These microbial shifts may signal early dysbiosis — an early warning of declining host health.

5/
🦠 Microbial communities:
We found species-specific core microbiomes, conserved across both pH conditions.
This stability suggests potential acclimatization capacity in both species despite environmental stress.

4/
🧱 Mineral & skeletal structure:
The two species showed opposing strategies to low pH.
🦪 P. ottomuelleriana reduced Mg-calcite & zooid volume
🪸 M. truncata thickened its skeleton
→ Different energy trade-offs to maintain calcification under stress

3/
We focused on two species:
🦪 Pentapora ottomuelleriana (fast-growing, encrusting)
🪸 Myriapora truncata (slow-growing, erect)
They naturally occur inside & outside a Mediterranean CO₂ vent. 🌋
We also used 3D micro-CT scans to visualize how their skeletons change.

2/
Why bryozoans?
🪸 They build reef-like structures
🌍 They're widespread + ecologically important
🦠 But largely understudied—especially their microbiomes!
We studied them at a volcanic CO₂ vent & a control site in Ischia Island, a "time machine" for future oceans.

1/
Our new paper is out today in @commsbio.nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com 🚨

🔗https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08524-8

We studied how two Mediterranean bryozoan species respond to ocean acidification & warming using a natural underwater CO₂ vent as a climate change lab. 🌊🧫
🧵⬇️

Check the articles that were sourced in this thread:

doi.org/10.1007/s126...
doi.org/10.1007/s101...

That’s all for our acid-loving protist of the week. It truly exemplifies everything heavy metal is about: the power of friendship (or in other words, holobionts). Gather with us for the next #MidweekMicrobe, just like microbes in biofilms! lml 🦠 🍄 🧫

Notably, an isolate from an AMD site in Canada was found to boost its tolerance to low pH by associating with an antibiotic-producing fungus and an acidophilic bacterium — forming a truly heavy-metal holobiont known as the FAB (fungus, alga, bacterium) consortium.

Some of the mechanisms this alga uses to cope with heavy metals include supplementation of chlorophyll with other divalent cations (in place of Mg²⁺), and internal compartmentalization via precipitation or granule formation.

📷 Adapted from Brake et al.

In addition to being a bioindicator for AMD, E. mutabilis has been reported to grow in biofilms that trap contaminants and help precipitate them into iron-rich stromatolites, limiting their spread downstream.

📷 Adapted from Brake et al.

E. mutabilis is an acidophile that thrives in acid mine drainage (AMD), with optimal growth between pH 3.4 and 5.4. Like other euglenoids, this organism is photosynthetic and has a characteristic red eyespot.

Has it lost its mind? Can it see or is it blind? Don’t worry — we’re not judging anyone. We’re just amazed by the protagonist of this week’s #MidweekMicrobe.
Make some noise for a true Ironman: the euglenozoan Euglena mutabilis! 🤘 🦠

📷 Gerd Guenther

Erick James Artist Biography As a biologist and artist my pieces convey the wonders of the natural world. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of British Columbia and an Honours Metal Certificate from the Kootenay School of the Arts at Selkirk College. I have worked and studied in labs for more than 20 years and still find wonder there. It is this curiosity and excitement for the natural world that I bring to my art. In larger than life metal microbes, metal origami birds, scanning electron micrographs in gilded frames, and framed fixed specimen slides. The invisible are made visible, the often seen are reexamined. Humboldt Squid (Dosidicus gigas), also referred to as diablo rojo or Red Devil. They are members of the flying squid family and will fly out of the water to escape predators. This one is aptly made from scrap aluminium aircraft parts. Oil Furnace Nautilus This sculpture was fabricated out of a 1950s oil burning furnace. It retains the original green colour and the Airco logo was fashioned into its eyes. Cameroceras is an extinct cephalopod genus related to the pearly nautilus. This is a baby. Fossilized shells have been found that are 2 metres long, putting the total length to 4 metres! This sculpture is made from aircraft aluminium. Road Sign Nautilus is made from a decommissioned road sign found at a local scrap yard.

Very excited to have my work in the Peninsula Gallery located in Sidney, BC.

#metalart #sculptures #metalsculpture #metalwork #metalartist #artist #fabrication #metalworking #metalartwork #custom #handcrafted #artwork #metalfab #scrapart #artworks #cephalopod
#nautilus #humboldtsquid #cameroceras

Gints ZilbalodisFlow (film), Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

📣 ¡#IBE_Barcelona participa en 🎬 #CSICdeCine 2025!

El 19 de septiembre se proyectará la película Flow en el edificio #CMIMA, y contaremos con la participación de Javier del Campo, investigador principal del #IBE, en el debate científico. 🍿🎞️

👉https://shorturl.at/TMwlP

🏆 Javier del Campo, principal investigator at @delcampolab.bsky.social‬ (#IBE_Barcelona), has been awarded the Hutner Award at the 16th International Congress of Protistology (ICOP/ISOP 2025) — a recognition of his impactful work in the field of protistology.🦠🧬🪸

👉https://shorturl.at/5Lz6L

For further insight, check out doi.org/10.1016/j.pr... and
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦠 🪱

📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

Morphology wise, P. noduliferae has an overlall flattened shape, transverse surface folds and a flagellar apparatus, which is located at the apical end of the cell and contains two flagella (anterior and posterior) that move in a whip-like motion.
📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

The Platyproteum genus had been formerly assigned to the Apicomplexa, but was later demostrated by Mathur and colleagues that it actually branched off from the base of the chrompodellid taxa and apicomplexan clade. P. noduliferae is sister to P. vivax (Yokouchi et al 2022).

Platyproteum noduliferae is a marine alveolate, discovered in the intestinal tract of the host Phascolosoma noduliferum (a peanut worm🥜🪱 ) in the western coast of Hok kaido, Japan by Yokouchi et al #Midweekmicrobe
📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

Last week we attended the Jornades de Biologia Evolutiva, organized by the @scb.iec.cat 🧫

@matteoagazzi.bsky.social and @rociomozo.bsky.social did a great job presenting their advances on their coral HMW and HiC data generation and Suessiales de novo transcriptomics projects🧬🤩

Keep it up folks!☺️

It is an honor to receive the #ISOP Hutner Award to a researcher within 15 years of his PhD who has made outstanding contributions in protistology 😊

I would like to thank my mentors (Ramon Massana, @multicellgenome.bsky.social, @pjkeelinglab.bsky.social) and my past and present students 🙏

Another memorable #ISOP with an amazing group of protistologists! #ICOP25 #ProtistsOnSky

YouTube video by Protistologists ISOP Member Spotlight Patrick Keeling 2025

Check out this month’s #ISOP Member Spotlight featuring Patrick Keeling! We discuss the major challenges facing science today, the importance of storytelling in protistology, and Patrick’s experience with his long-running undergraduate protistology course at UBC #ProtistsOnSky

Thanks @varshamathur.bsky.social for the invitation to give a talk on corals 🪸 and their #protists at the “Interactions and Evolution of Organisms Seminar” at @univie.ac.at. I had a great time with you folks! 🙌 #protistsonsky

A collage of cell diagrams showing overall protist diversity. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002395.g004. CC BY 4.0

La maravillosa red microscópica que sostiene la vida en los océanos y explica el origen de los animales🦠🪸🌟

Con motivo del #DíaMundialdelosOcéanos, esta semana exploramos los protistas, los micoorganismos que están en la base de sus redes tróficas.🧵

👉https://shorturl.at/ea5OP