Trachymyrmex septentrionalis ants promote fungus garden hygiene using Trichoderma-derived metabolite cues biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #bioRxiv

Fantastic efforts by co-first authors Katie Kyle and Sara Puckett, @BalunasLab, Jonathan Klassen, @amcaraballor, Madeleine Ernst, & co-authors! 😎 So fascinating creatures this #ants 🐜, and their ecosystem with a #fungus #garden! #computational #metabolomics #genomics #metabolites

MCB Hiring: Lab Assistant The Molecular and Cell Biology Department is seeking to fill a 12-month Laboratory Assistant position. The successful candidate will provide support for undergraduate teaching laboratories in the Department. Visit jobs.hr.uconn.edu/cw/en-us/job/4… for details

My sick kids scuttled our turkey with friends plan (they are almost healthy now after 1 week) but I'm thankful at least for a day off that I can use to putter on home projects. May you find some rest, whatever form it takes.

Shout out to UConn for launching a new resource for student parents. A group that often gets overlooked. studentparents.uconn.edu

Are you an early career scientist interested in #microbiomes? Apply for an NSF-funded #AgMicrobiomes travel award for the Agricultural Microbiomes Thinkathon hosted by #APSPlantHealth on Aug 12 in Denver, CO! Applications due Fri June 9. Apply here: tinyurl.com/agmicrobiomes2…

New paper in pnas from @BalunasLab, Jonathan Klassen and team details how Trachymyrmex septentrionalis ants promote #fungus garden hygiene using Trichoderma-derived metabolite cues: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Did you know ants are avid gardeners? In a new PNASNews report, UConn environmental microbiologist and collaborators explain how these tiny creatures have refined their weeding skills to distinguish the good garden fungus from the bad. today.uconn.edu/2023/06/resear…

Very happy to announce our latest paper, a collaboration with @BalunasLab Pieter Dorrestein Oberlies Research Group. We describe how ants sense pathogens to keep their food fungus healthy. See for more: today.uconn.edu/2023/06/resear… pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Ants sniff out diseased fungus in their underground gardens. today.uconn.edu/2023/06/resear… Pretty nifty Jonathan Klassen PNASNews

Congratulations to all authors on this incredibly interesting 🐜study out now in PNASNews that includes work from members of the Jonathan Klassen & @BalunasLab! COR²E is proud to have supported this research via sequencing in @UConnMars and mass spectrometry in UConn Proteomics & Metabolomics. 👏

Ants that farm fungus to eat must weed out pathogenic fungi that contaminate their food supply. A study shows that a class of metabolites called peptaibols produced by the unwanted fungus Trichoderma induces an ant-weeding response. In PNAS: ow.ly/5Sa450OUOAm

My new commentary in PNASNews about Insect Symbiosis Lab 's paper showing how beewolf wasps protect their symbionts from host chemical defenses. pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… Original paper: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

New #podcast episode!!🐜🍄 I speak with @BalunasLab & Jonathan Klassen about the fascinating ways ants cultivate fungal gardens! Available anywhere you listen to podcasts! 🎧Direct link: podbean.com/ew/pb-8nkg8-14… #fungi #ants #pharmacognosy #chemistry #Science

I had a blast chatting with Foodie Pharmacology Podcast and @BalunasLab last week about our newest research on ants, their fungal gardens, and their pathogens. Check out the podcast at podbean.com/ew/pb-8nkg8-14…

New lab pub by Katie Kyle - does your ITS2 data have all the taxa it should? "Untrimmed ITS2 metabarcode sequences cause artificially reduced abundances of specific fungal taxa" in Applied and Environmental Microbiology journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.11…