Elisabeth Altrogge
@elisabethaltrogge.bsky.social
Formerly Elisabeth Richardson. Assistant professor at Mount Royal University. Microbial ecology and evolution in environments affected by hydrocarbons (which is all of them)
Just figured out how to connect my two most time consuming projects which feels like the academic equivalent of debt consolidation
September 19, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Just figured out how to connect my two most time consuming projects which feels like the academic equivalent of debt consolidation
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
I wrote about how we must stand and fight against the threat of eugenics.
Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent.
This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.
Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent.
This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.
Eugenics is on the rise again: human geneticists must take a stand
Scientists must push back against the threat of rising white nationalism and the dangerous and pseudoscientific ideas of eugenics.
www.nature.com
April 24, 2025 at 12:44 PM
I wrote about how we must stand and fight against the threat of eugenics.
Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent.
This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.
Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent.
This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants
Nature Ecology & Evolution - A meta-analysis finds that decreasing diversity of pollinator species has a negative affect on multiple measures of plant reproductive success, with wild plant...
www.nature.com
December 11, 2024 at 8:49 PM
[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
This is beyond fascinating!
Swabbing a mouse's head with a Q-tip with Staphylococcus epidermidis engineered to express a tetanus toxoid antigen can elicit a robust & protective immune response against lethal exposure!
Imagine: vaccination by gentle Q-tip on skin!
#IDSky #ImmunoSky #SciSky #MedSky
Swabbing a mouse's head with a Q-tip with Staphylococcus epidermidis engineered to express a tetanus toxoid antigen can elicit a robust & protective immune response against lethal exposure!
Imagine: vaccination by gentle Q-tip on skin!
#IDSky #ImmunoSky #SciSky #MedSky
Today we report that an engineered skin bacterium, swabbed gently on the head of a mouse, can unleash a potent antibody response against a pathogen. Could lead to topical vaccines that are applied in a cream. @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social led the charge... @natureportfolio.bsky.social 1/55
December 11, 2024 at 8:35 PM
This is beyond fascinating!
Swabbing a mouse's head with a Q-tip with Staphylococcus epidermidis engineered to express a tetanus toxoid antigen can elicit a robust & protective immune response against lethal exposure!
Imagine: vaccination by gentle Q-tip on skin!
#IDSky #ImmunoSky #SciSky #MedSky
Swabbing a mouse's head with a Q-tip with Staphylococcus epidermidis engineered to express a tetanus toxoid antigen can elicit a robust & protective immune response against lethal exposure!
Imagine: vaccination by gentle Q-tip on skin!
#IDSky #ImmunoSky #SciSky #MedSky
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Posting this cartoon every once in a while for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome. I think it's a really helpful perspective. I don't know who originally made this, please add a link if you do. 🧪
December 11, 2024 at 4:37 PM
Posting this cartoon every once in a while for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome. I think it's a really helpful perspective. I don't know who originally made this, please add a link if you do. 🧪
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
From the other place - I don’t think ISOP is on Bsky yet protistologists.org/upcoming-pro...
#ProtistsOnSky in 2025
#ProtistsOnSky in 2025
Upcoming Protistology Meetings - International Society of Protistologists
The International Society of Protistologists is an association of scientists devoted to research on single-celled eukaryotes, or protists. The ISOP promotes the presentation and discussion of new or i...
protistologists.org
December 6, 2024 at 10:26 PM
From the other place - I don’t think ISOP is on Bsky yet protistologists.org/upcoming-pro...
#ProtistsOnSky in 2025
#ProtistsOnSky in 2025
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Our new paper:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#protistsonsky
Here there is a download link if the previous one doesn't work: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kC9d3m3nN...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#protistsonsky
Here there is a download link if the previous one doesn't work: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kC9d3m3nN...
Phylogenomic workflow for uncultivable microbial eukaryotes using single-cell RNA sequencing − A case study with planktonic ciliates (Ciliophora, Oligotrichea)
Phylogenetic analyses increasingly rely on genomic and transcriptomic data to produce better supported inferences on the evolutionary relationships am…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 2, 2024 at 12:38 PM
Our new paper:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#protistsonsky
Here there is a download link if the previous one doesn't work: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kC9d3m3nN...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#protistsonsky
Here there is a download link if the previous one doesn't work: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kC9d3m3nN...
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Something else worth pointing out is that you might be applying to be *the* evolutionary biologist at the school, not *an* evo bio. Members of the search committee might not have thought about your discipline since a grad school core course. Show off why you’ll be great in the classroom!
Right. When I was a postdoc (with a baby at home!) I had little time to apply. So I wrote a statement for high-resource PUIs and lower-resource ones. Not asking for the moon, just a bit of help seeing the vision
November 29, 2024 at 7:16 PM
Something else worth pointing out is that you might be applying to be *the* evolutionary biologist at the school, not *an* evo bio. Members of the search committee might not have thought about your discipline since a grad school core course. Show off why you’ll be great in the classroom!
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Science takes time - a lot of time. Time that is more and more difficult to make available because of increased workloads. Time that exceeds the temporary contracts of postdocs and PhDs.
I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Soil microbiomes show consistent and predictable responses to extreme events - Nature
Soils from 30 grasslands across Europe were subjected to 4 contrasting extreme climatic events under drought, flood, freezing and heat conditions, with the results suggesting that soil microbiomes fro...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2024 at 11:32 AM
Science takes time - a lot of time. Time that is more and more difficult to make available because of increased workloads. Time that exceeds the temporary contracts of postdocs and PhDs.
I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
What did the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (#LECA) look like? Consensus View in #PLOSBiology; massive authorship including @AncestralState, @lauraeme.bsky.social, John Archbald, @andrewjroger.bsky.social, @dackslabecb.bsky.social, Jeremy Wideman. plos.io/4g0alq4
November 25, 2024 at 7:29 PM
What did the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (#LECA) look like? Consensus View in #PLOSBiology; massive authorship including @AncestralState, @lauraeme.bsky.social, John Archbald, @andrewjroger.bsky.social, @dackslabecb.bsky.social, Jeremy Wideman. plos.io/4g0alq4
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Exaptation of ancestral cell-identity networks enables C4 photosynthesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New from the Ecker lab in collaboration with the Hibberd lab. Congrats all!
New from the Ecker lab in collaboration with the Hibberd lab. Congrats all!
Exaptation of ancestral cell-identity networks enables C4 photosynthesis - Nature
Single-nucleus RNA-sequencing and chromatin-accessibility analyses in rice (a C3 plant) and sorghum (a C4 plant) provide insight into how C4 photosynthesis evolved in bundle-sheath cells, revealing th...
www.nature.com
November 20, 2024 at 4:51 PM
Exaptation of ancestral cell-identity networks enables C4 photosynthesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New from the Ecker lab in collaboration with the Hibberd lab. Congrats all!
New from the Ecker lab in collaboration with the Hibberd lab. Congrats all!
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
diatoms on the rocks = surfing on arctic ice 🧊 wow
#ProtistsOnSky
#ProtistsOnSky
November 21, 2024 at 7:01 PM
diatoms on the rocks = surfing on arctic ice 🧊 wow
#ProtistsOnSky
#ProtistsOnSky
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Today in relatable science: Gulls making a mysterious daily trip that turned out to be to a potato chip factory
November 15, 2024 at 8:15 PM
Today in relatable science: Gulls making a mysterious daily trip that turned out to be to a potato chip factory
Microbial eukaryotes and calls for improved data curation (my two favourite things)
Missing microbial eukaryotes and misleading meta-omic conclusions www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs 🌊
Missing microbial eukaryotes and misleading meta-omic conclusions - Nature Communications
Meta-omic analyses are commonly used for large-scale studies of microbial eukaryotes. Here, Krinos et al. explore the potential pitfalls of common approaches to taxonomic annotation of protistan meta-...
www.nature.com
November 15, 2024 at 2:41 PM
Microbial eukaryotes and calls for improved data curation (my two favourite things)
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Want to be amazed by how a symbiont can be located at the center of a cell while still being an epibiont! Please read and be amazed by the symbiosis between Anaerameoba and sulfate-reducing bacteria!
Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe
(1/11)
Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe
(1/11)
A unique symbiosome in an anaerobic single-celled eukaryote
Nature Communications - Symbiont-housing structures are well-studied in multicellular eukaryotes but rarely in unicellular protists. This study shows that low-oxygen-adapted Anaeramoebae have...
rdcu.be
November 11, 2024 at 10:47 PM
Want to be amazed by how a symbiont can be located at the center of a cell while still being an epibiont! Please read and be amazed by the symbiosis between Anaerameoba and sulfate-reducing bacteria!
Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe
(1/11)
Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe
(1/11)
Just realised I never did an introductory post - I'm Beth Altrogge (Richardson), microbiologist & bioinformatician. My research involves the adaptation of microbes to (circum)polar environments and / or hydrocarbon exposure, and I'm particularly interested in the intersection of the two.
November 12, 2024 at 8:21 PM
Just realised I never did an introductory post - I'm Beth Altrogge (Richardson), microbiologist & bioinformatician. My research involves the adaptation of microbes to (circum)polar environments and / or hydrocarbon exposure, and I'm particularly interested in the intersection of the two.
Just had to explain to a student in class that before YouTube we had to watch our older siblings play through video games and if anyone needs me I'll be in the old folks home
October 2, 2023 at 5:36 PM
Just had to explain to a student in class that before YouTube we had to watch our older siblings play through video games and if anyone needs me I'll be in the old folks home
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
Our big question for the community: Might you like to help maintain Mesquite after we stop? David and I are near retirement age. While we expect to continue active research, our patience for programming declines. It's open source, but grokking the architecture isn't easy alone.
Next Friday 22 September is the 20th anniversary of the release of Mesquite, a program/system for phylogenetic data and analyses developed by David Maddison (@bembidion.bsky.social) and me, and currently in version 3.8. Some thoughts & a party! — a 🧵. mesquiteproject.org
September 15, 2023 at 4:48 PM
Our big question for the community: Might you like to help maintain Mesquite after we stop? David and I are near retirement age. While we expect to continue active research, our patience for programming declines. It's open source, but grokking the architecture isn't easy alone.
Reposted by Elisabeth Altrogge
