Biology and Evolution of Symbiosis (BESymb)-
New member: Welcome Anna!
This last week, Anna Doblhofer (Bachelor student at the University of Vienna) joined the group for her Bachelor internship. Anna will be taking over barcoding of
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Project funded! “Plant pathogens in insect microbiome […]” (FWF/NCN Weave)
![Project funded! “Plant pathogens in insect microbiome […]” (FWF/NCN Weave)](https://besymblab.univie.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2026_07_NCN_FWF_insect_pictures_25p.png)
Along with Anna Michalik & Piotr Łukasik (Jagiellonian University), we will embark on a large-scale collaborative project funded by the Austrian Science fund (Austria) and the
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New work out! A multilayered network reveals the centrality of Nucleocytoviricota in wastewater treatment plant communities
In a collaboration with Anouk Willemsen and led by Dominik (VEE lab), we reconstructed high-quality genomes from diverse Waste-water treatment plants (61 novel nucleocytoviruses, 15 virophages
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New work out! Co-evolution and synchronised evolutionary rates in aphid dual endosymbiont systems
Aphids typically rely on the obligate symbiont Buchnera, but several lineages have acquired additional co-obligate symbionts, most commonly Serratia symbiotica. Through phylogenetic analyses, we found that
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Microbiology day 2026, Bordeaux
This last week, I had the pleasure to attend the annual “Microbiology day“, a meeting from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in France, as a keynote speaker, spreading
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Talk and sampling trip at Slovenia
After a long hiatus, we are back in Slovenia! This past week Pegah and I went to the University of Ljubljana to join long-term collaborator Peter
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Visit to the ETH Zurich!
This week I was lucky to have been invited to talk at the Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ) Seminar Series by the Vorburger’s group (Evolutionary Ecology).
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Mobility fellowship for Pegah!
Pegah was just awarded a Mobility Fellowship from the University of Vienna! This fellowship will enable Pegah to visit the “leech lab” at Kyoto University (Japan)
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New work out! Chromosome-level reference genome of the European southern medicinal leech Hirudo verbana
Thanks to the European Reference Genome Atlas initiative (ERGA) and their Biodiversity Genomics Europe project (BGE), a reference genome for the historical European southern medicinal leech
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Visit to the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH) – UNAM
This January I had the pleasure of visiting the LIIGH – UNAM, at my home city of Querétaro (México), where I was able to talk about