News

We are hosting the first Mycology Nordics conference this week. This meeting is not just a scientific meeting, it’s also a vision to generate a future network of mycologists from the Nordics with the research interest in ecology, evolution and genetics of fungi. The interest for the meeting was greater than we had hoped for! - so now we have about 100 participants from around the Nordics joining us. Lots of work, and lots of new friends! Go, mycology, go!

Fungal genomes harbor NOD-Like receptors (NLRs), which are analogous to the innate immune receptors found in animals, plants and bacteria. We collaborated with Pierre Gladieux and his group for an investigation of the variability of fungal NLR repertoires and the underlying determinants, in the ascomycete order Sordariales. Read the preprint here: https://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2024.11.26.625400v1

Mario got his master thesis work accepted for publication in IMA fungus. A nice contribution to the international resource of fungi isolated from nature, and data showing really cool small fruiting bodies of Hericium coralloides formed in the lab! Soon it will be printed in the journal, so you can check it out.

Markus got a grant from The Royal Physiographic Society of Lund to experimentally test for inheritance patterns in Flammulina velupites. Congratulations, Markus!

Hanna got the project grant from the Swedish Research Foundation (VR) to continue working on the basidiomycete germline sequestration! Great news!

Markus got the manuscript ”Evolution of a bipolar sexual compatibility system in Marasmius” accepted for publication in Mycologia. A project started long a go - and finished recently. We show that Marasmius obeys to the typical Agaricomycete way to evolve bipolarity from tetrapolarity - by loss of mating compatibility function of the P/R locus.

Today our lab had an outing in Fjällnora with the rest of the HumFun-network, a late-fall-mushroom-foray followed by sauna and swimming in the lake. And a BBQ. Not so many mushrooms found, but a lot of fun!

Today Mattias Siljestam joins the lab as a postdoc. He’s an expert in mathematical modeling to answer evolutionary questions, which adds an important piece to the combined expertise of our team. Welcome Mattias!

Today we have Praissy Zefi joining the lab. She will use her bioinformatic skills to help out with the Verticillium-project. Welcome, Zefi!

Gulnara’s paper on the beautiful yellow lichen, Xanthoria parietina, is now online on biorxiv. A very comprehensive study on the metagenome and metatranscriptome of the lichen at different developmental stages, shows much hidden diversity at all taxonomic levels. Read the paper here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.16.608140v1

This week, our group attends the International Mycological Congress in Maastricht. We find out what’s new in mycology and also present our own research: Hanna gives a keynote and Noah gives a session talk on the genomics of Chaetomiaceae. Markus, Jesper, Boel, Petter and Marion show posters. And, of course, we all take this opportunity to hang out with our old and new friends and colleagues.

By generating genomes from the mycorrhizal lineage Inocybaceae, and comparing them to genomes of their saprotrophic relatives, we add to the bulk of literature on the topic: lots of genomic changes apparently occur just at the transition to the symbiotic lifestyle! Read the paper by Kalsoom Khan et al. here: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.20007

Ivar is in Montreal - joining the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology! He gives a talk about his cool findings on the Podospora centromeres at the “within organism conflicts” - session, and also brought a poster.

Today our group participated in Blodomloppet Stockholm 2024. This is a running race to promote blood donations. Our team ran a combined distance of more than 100 km!

Today Mario Walthert successfully defended his master thesis “Isolation and Cultivation of Fungi from Swedish Nature”! It turned out to be a very cool study generating a resource of cultures of edible mushrooms from the Stockholm-Uppsala area. Congratulations, Mario!

Today we welcome Peter Jan Vonk as the newest member of the group! Peter Jan has a background in molecular biology of mushroom-forming fungi and will join us in the work to determine the structure and function of the germline in Marasmius oreades.

Hanna participated in Gothenburg science festival, talking about fungal life cycles together with Leif Anderson from Gothenburg. See the discussion here: https://www.kva.se/evenemang/vetenskapsfestivalen-2024/

Hanna served as opponent in Copenhagen, when Guangshou Li defended his thesis “Taxonomy and adaptations of termite-associated fungi” and visited Michael Poulsen’s research group.

After a very comprehensive and constructive review process, the paper on factors driving diversification in the cyanobacterium Microcoleus is finally published in Nature communications. Lots of genomes and lots of hard work! Read the paper here!

One more piece of work from Lore’s PhD-thesis is published in Genome Biology and Evolution. Here, we present chromosome-level assemblies of the remaining species of the Podospora species complex and make an attempt to resolve their phylogenetic relationships. Lore’s work has really contributed to making Podospora a fine model system for the study of genome evolution! Read the paper here!

Marieke van der Poel started as a master student in the lab! She will delve into the genomes of Neurospora sitophila and in particular investigate spore killer resistance factors. Welcome!

Petter successfully presented and defended his half-time PhD-report. He got very useful feedback from the external reviewer Francisco Nascimento from our home Department here at SU. Well done, Petter and thanks Frasse.

Hanna was elected as member in the class of biology, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Congratulations, Hanna!

Ivar’s first chapter in his PhD-thesis was accepted in Mobile DNA! Read the paper here!

This week, we said farewell to Lore, who will move to France for her VR-funded postdoc work, and to Xi-Hui, who went back to China to continue working with the morels back home. Xi-Hui brought us to the best Chinese restaurant in Uppsala, so we got some good food while wishing them good fortune for the next moves!

Today Noah successfully defended their halftime thesis “Some like it hot - Genomic traits of thermophilic fungi”. Opponent was Aelys Humphreys from DEEP. In the evening the group celebrated at restaurant Hermans in Stockholm. Congratulations, Noah!

Our paper on spore formation in Morchella galilaea, driven by Xi-Hui Du, was published online in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. In this paper, Xi-Hui shows intriguing data on variability in ascospore size, number and shape and conidia produced directly from ascospores in this species. Read the paper here!

Markus, Boel, Mario and Hanna went to Szeged in Hungary to visit the group of Laszlo Nagy! We had a “mini conference” with short talks, saw their lab and discussed ongoing collaboration. A very nice trip!

This day was the day of this semester for meeting up with our mycologist-friends in the HumFun-network. The group went to Uppsala for a full day of presentations that ended with a nice party.

Noah’s paper on the phylogeny and comparative genomics in the Sordariales order has been published online, in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Congratulations Noah, amazing work!

Today we went to the field to help Mario collect mushrooms for his master thesis. We ended the evening with a crayfish party (caught from lake Vättern) at Hanna’s house.

Mario Walthert is a new master student starting in our group. He will investigate conditions for fruiting of basidiomycetes. Welcome Mario!

Our PI, Hanna Johannesson, is giving her program at Sommar i P1. The program is dedicated to the fungi. Listen to it here: https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/hanna-johannesson-sommarpratare-2023

Gulnara Tagirdzhanova is visiting our lab today to discuss lichen genomics. Lots of fun to hear about the development of a lichen model species!

Today we visited Morga hage south of Uppsala to sample some morels for Xi-Hui’s project. Apart from some sunny weather, mosquito bites, and a nice day in the field, we found some yellow morels! They will make a nice addition to our project about the distribution of morel species in Northern Europe, if we manage not to eat them all that is…

Our PhD-student Boel Olsson is in Cesky Krumlov for the Genomics workshop! Great place to be to learn from the leaders of the field!

This week, Petter Madsen and Noah Hensen are participating with posters at the Netherlands Society for Evolutionary Biology! They also visit the Laboratory of Genetics in Wageningen to discuss more in-depth research on fungal evolution.

A hectic week is coming to an end. Most of the group attended the Crafoord-symposium that was arranged in honour of Dolph Schluter, this year’s Crafoord-laureate. I was the ambassador for the Fungal Kingdom at the symposium, and gave a talk on fungal speciation. And, yesterday Lorena was handed a well-deserved scholarship from the hands of the King of Sweden. It all ended with a really nice banquet last night! Now, back to work again…

Today Marion Orsucci starts as a researcher in the Johannesson lab, bringing in her expertise in population genomics. She will work on hybrid speciation of Verticillium phytopathogens. Welcome, Marion!

Today we meet with the so-called Humongous fungus group, which is a network that brings together mycologists from Uppsala and Stockholm Universities. Looking forward to hear many interesting talks today about cutting-edge fungal research. In the evening we have a joint celebration for today’s event and Ivar’s halftime defence that took place yesterday, with a potluck party and pub!

Today, Ivar successfully defended his half-time PhD-thesis. External opponent was Gitte Petersen from DEEP! Congratulations, Ivar!

Lately Hanna has been busy commenting on the threats of fungi in the news, as people are watching the series “The Last of Us”. Hopefully, the attention fungi get from the series will lead to more knowledge about fungi in the end! Here are the links!

The domain name change has been finalized and new version of the website is running. Stay tuned to johannessonlab.org for news from our lab group.

We are very excited to launch our new lab web page! Stay tuned to this site for bigger announcements about what’s going on at the Johannesson lab. Follow us also on twitter for our day-to-day activities.