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P-UK Autumn meeting 2021

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The P-UK autumn meeting 202 took place online on the afternoon of the 8th December 2021.

The day was dedicated to Alan Warren who has served the Protistology-UK community and the Protistology-UK Society for many years. Talks focused on the diversity and biology of ciliates, Alan’s favourite group of protists. The session was closed with an outreach talk from Harriet Jones, presenting some of the children books and games from Paramecium press. 

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Confirmed invited speakers:

Genoveva Esteban and James Weiss: Playing hide and seek with ciliates

Ľubomír Rajter’:  Global patterns of ciliate alpha and beta diversity across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems

Blanca Pérez Uz: Hidden diversity of ciliates in ephemeral pools of granitic outcrops

David Montagnes and Thomas Weisse: Ecology of Planktonic Ciliates in a Changing World: Concepts, Methods and Challenges

Sabine Agatha: Collecting bits and pieces - an integrative study on marine planktonic ciliates

Harriet Jones and Owen Senior: Bringing protistology to a very young audience

P-UK thanks the ISOP for the zoom licence.

P-UK Spring meeting 2021: Exploring the Eukaryotic Tree of Life

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P-UK and the Eukaryotic Division of the MS are organising the  symposium Exploring the Eukaryotic Tree of Life on Wednesday 28th of April 2021 in the afternoon, taking place during the Microbiology Society's Annual Conference 2021 (online).

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In the scope of the new UK initiative “Darwin Tree of Life Project”, which is part of the “Earth BioGenome Project”, this session will explore protist and fungi diversity, discuss which branches of the eukaryotic tree of life have been over- or underestimated based on recent metagenomics data, and which regions have been undersampled to explore and discover potentially new branches of the eukaryotic tree.

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Confirmed invited speakers:

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Neil Hall (Earlham Institute, UK)

Patrick Keeling (UBC, Canada)

Sarah Hu (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, USA)

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Details regarding registration, abstract submission and full programme can be found here

P-UK Winter meeting 2021: Protist parasites of freshwater microalgae

 

This year, P-UK has teamed up with the British Phycological Society (BPS) in the delivery of a special session on ‘Protist parasites of freshwater microalgae’. The session will run within the BPS’s annual conference (on-line this year), specifically, Friday January 8th 2021.

 

Parasites are significant components of aquatic ecosystems and play a role in shaping food web structure, facilitating energy transfer, and controlling disease. In freshwater environments, zoosporic fungi (Chytridomycota) and fungi-like organisms (including oomycetes, labyrinthulids, thraustochytrids and phagomyxids) are well known parasites of microalgae. However, far less is known about the other eukaryotic parasites such as filose amoebae (e.g. Vamparellids, Phytomyxids) and alveolates (e.g. Sindinids). This session addresses current knowledge on these protist parasites and stresses the importance of understanding their abundance, evolution and biodiversity in order to fully appreciate their role in microalgal population dynamics in freshwater systems.

 

Invited speakers include Claire Gachon, Sigrid Neuhauser, Aurelie Chambouvet and Sebastian Hess. Offered talks are also welcomed and abstracts should be submitted to the BPS (see link below) clearly stating the talk relates to the P-UK session.

 

Further details on all the sessions, together with registration and abstract submission, can be found at:

https://virginiapanizzo.wixsite.com/bps-nottingham

Symbiosis flier.jpg

Protistology UK’s Autumn meeting in collaboration with and supported by the Microbiology Society and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

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At this 2 half-day event we will:

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  • Discuss leading-edge research on the evolution, ecology and biology of symbioses that include microbes

  • Identify novel perspectives on symbiosis by fostering dialogue between symbioses researchers and scientists/engineers who have not worked on the topic but have novel disciplinary and methodological perspectives to bring to the topic

  • Consider major unanswered questions of microbial symbiosis research, and formulate strategies to address these questions

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Invited speakers including:

Sinead Collins: University of Edinburgh

Jörg Wiedenmann: University of South Hampton

Katherine Helliwell: Marine Biology Association

Michael Brockhurst: University of Sheffield

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Have a look at the Abstracts' Booklet and Meeting Outcomes!

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