del Campo Lab

Thank you everyone for a great congress!🦠🌊😊 @same18-bcn.bsky.social

. @joanakrause.bsky.social gave a presentation on her project “Describing the diversity and global distribution of plastid-bearing coral symbionts re-using published microbiome data”

. @rociomozo.bsky.social presented a poster on “Phylogenomics of Coral Photosymbionts and their Free-Living Relatives” (her Master’s project)

We had a great time last week at @same18-bcn.bsky.social in Barcelona!

Your students arrive in Curaçao earlier than you and say: We are bored. Can we do that extra diel cycle sampling that we talked about 🤔 ?

Your only answer as a PI: Sure 😬

The outcome? Sleep-deprived students and an excellent work on the #coral holobiont rhythmicity 🪸🦠⏰

#symbiosis #microbiome

This effort was a 'tour de force' only made possible by my incredible lab @ambonacolta.bsky.social and @fonamental.bsky.social. Absolutely thrilled to get this part of my Ph.D. dissertation out, thank you everyone involved!

Lastly, we explored microbiome structure 🦠 through time. Broadly, the microbial composition is largely stable through time, with notable taxon-specific changes through day/night light cycles. During the day carbohydrate catabolizers show enrichment, while night hours feature methylotrophs.

Similar to the host, the symbiont Breviolum showed diel regulated transcription, although more subtle. Time-specific functions were recovered, showing metabolite transfer and nitrogen/carbohydrate metabolism through daytime, while cellular division and reorganization/turnover during the dark hours.

In the coral host, we observed dawn as a molecular surge in RNA metabolism 🧬, midday exhibits high phosphate regulation 🔋, dusk reflects lipid & amino acid metabolism ♻️, and midnight shows mRNA catabolism & mitochondrial reorganization 🗂️. Most striking, we recovered ~30% transcripts as rhythmic.

🚨New Preprint Alert🚨 P. strigosa, a reef-building coral shows tightly regulated transcriptional control over natural diel cycles. #CoralReefs #Symbiosky #bioinformatics #marinemicrobes #protistsonsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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