Category Archives: microbiology

What's all the buzz about? Bees got microbiomes too!

Posted on 11 May, 2016 by Kelle Freel

So I know we are all blabbing about the human microbiome, who isn’t fascinated by the impressive roles tiny microbes have in our lives!? Trying to unravel what exactly our microbial communities do for us, and how they relate to … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Analysis of the human microbiome reveals you are (at least related to) what you eat, in a manner of speaking

Posted on 29 Apr, 2016 by Kelle Freel

Understanding microbial symbioses, and more specifically how the human microbiome affects our health, is currently a hot topic in the land of microbiology and metagenomics. The most recent special edition of Science focuses on reviews and articles centered on understanding … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, medicine, microbiology, next generation sequencing, population genetics | Leave a comment

New branches on the tree of life

Posted on 12 Apr, 2016 by Kelle Freel

(Trees from Darwin (1837), Haeckel (1866), and Woese (1990)) We’ve come quite a long way since Darwin sketched out his tree in 1837 connecting, with branch tips representing animals and microbes currently in existence and branches and trunks their ancestors. … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, phylogenetics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

How urbanization might affect the five-second rule

Posted on 24 Feb, 2016 by Kelle Freel

At this point, we know that microbes are everywhere and make up complex communities found all over the place ranging from oceanic hydrothermal vents to lakes, soils, and, yes of course, all over you. It has also become apparent that … Continue reading →

Posted in community ecology, microbiology | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

A race to the bottom with a new card from the coevolutionary deck

Posted on 29 Jan, 2016 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

I’m a sucker for a clever, amusing title, though I’ve recently read that amusing titles are cited less (see here). Alas, maybe a well placed metaphor can enliven a manuscript and also not get lost in a citation-less abyss? In basic … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, evolution, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology, selection | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Where's your wine from?

Posted on 20 Aug, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Human-mediated selection of yeast cultures has played a huge role in the development of numerous unique strains of Sacchromyces cerevisiae, often attributed to production of a wide variety of wines the world over. Previous studies have indicated a single domesticated … Continue reading →

Posted in domestication, evolution, genomics, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology, Molecular Ecology, the journal, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, STRUCTURE, yeast | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Old dogs, and 'carnivorous' pandas

Posted on 4 Jun, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

It was a good fortnight for large mammals! Two recent studies attempt to date the emergence of modern canids, and offer insights into the gut microbiomes of giant pandas. Ancient Wolf Genome Reveals an Early Divergence of Domestic Dog Ancestors and … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, natural history, Paleogenomics, population genetics, speciation | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Et tu, Brute? Black-legged ticks use genes co-opted from bacteria to fight bacterial infection

Posted on 8 Dec, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

Horizontal gene transfer occurs when genes are passed between individuals by mechanisms other than reproduction. It is common in bacteria and occasionally happens between highly divergent groups (for example, monocot genes transferred to eudicots, fungal genes transferred to aphids, bacterial genes transferred … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology | Leave a comment

Genetics reveal the diversity of pollinators' other cargo: fungi

Posted on 28 Oct, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

The following is a cross-posting from the Stanford CEHG Blog by Jeremy Hsu, a graduate student in Elizabeth Hadley’s lab at Stanford University. Many animals that visit flowers are known to carry microfungal communities; these fungi are important ecologically because … Continue reading →

Posted in community ecology, metagenomics, microbiology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The broom of the system: Tracking soft selective sweeps in bacteria colonizing the gut

Posted on 11 Mar, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

A growing body of population genetic evidence suggests that adaptive evolutionary change often proceeds via soft selective sweeps, in which beneficial mutations on multiple genetic backgrounds—and potentially at multiple loci—all increase in frequency, but none achieve fixation. This process has … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, microbiology, population genetics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment