Jen McGaley
Post-doc in the Paszkowski Lab @PaszkowskiLab researching arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis. Great fan of fungi, plants, microscopy
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 A visit from an artist yesterday was the perfect excuse to spend some time admiring this very beautiful arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus: 𝘎𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘢 (pictured here colonising rice roots) #mycosky #fungi #microscopy
- At the bottom of the image above you can see the spore-like 'auxiliary cells'. It becomes clear where this fungus gets it name when you find a true spore!
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 A tangentially-festive sample this week: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonising the root cells of Ivy 🌿🎄☃️ #mycosky #festive #fungi
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyThe arbuscules of arbuscular mycorrhiza
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Motivated by a seminar from @tomthirkell.bsky.social, I've delved back into my image archives of mycorrhizal fungi in random plant species. This beautifully bunchy fungal arbuscule in a buttercup root needed sharing!🔬🏵️ #mycosky #fungi #microscopy #outreach
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyIt's been a busy time in the Paszkowski lab! First, a pre-print on how rice distinguishes friend (AM fungi)🍄 from foe (pathogens)👾: doi.org/10.1101/2025... And second, a review on single-cell omic approaches to understand the spatially and temporally complex AM symbiosis 🔬: doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyDid you know that over 90% of fungi are still unknown to science? 🍄 Join us at Fungi Field Day 2025 to discover more fungi facts! 📅 Sat 4 Oct | 10am – 4pm Talks, walks, crafts & more - free with normal Garden admission. To find out more: bit.ly/48ABVcS
- Reposted by Jen McGaley🍄 Fungi Field Day is almost here! 🍄 Save the date: Saturday 4 October 🍄 Come along from 10am to 4pm Celebrate all things fungi with art, crafts, face painting, talks, forays and games - there's something for everyone! We look forward to welcoming you! 🌿 #CUBG #FungiFieldDay #CambridgeEvents
- Reposted by Jen McGaley🍄 One month until Fungi Field Day 2025!! 🍄 Held on UK Fungus Day (4th October) @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social, this event celebrates the fungal kingdom, featuring science, games, walks, talks, face-painting and much more for all ages. Please spread the word! www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/fun...
- Reposted by Jen McGaleySpent last week at the microscope 🔬✨, and seeing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi up close for the first time—hyphae, arbuscules, vesicles—was absolutely mind-blowing. Small but mighty partners of plant roots 🌿. Sharing a few of my favourite shots. #Mycorrhiza #fungi
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyWho lives underground? Find out now in our new paper published in @nature.com. Key finding: 90% of predicted mycorrhizal biodiversity hotspots lie outside protected areas. Read here: buff.ly/WmDqAP3 🧵
- Beautiful microscopy of beautiful arbuscules
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyWhat does colonisation tell us? Revisiting the functional outcomes of #root colonisation by arbuscular #mycorrhizal #fungi A #Letter by @frewecologist.bsky.social 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyUta Paszkowski expands on the arbuscular mycorrhizal theme with a cool spatial transcriptome method to better resolve dynamics during colonization of rice. Can see key transporter transcripts accumulating in arbuscules. #2025ISMPMI
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 From a primary school workshop: a mystery arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus in mystery plant. Sometimes fun to have no information about what you are looking at 🚸 #outreach #mycosky #fungi
- How to teach kids (+ parents) the concept of mycorrhizal symbiosis? Here's a thread of things that we use @paszkowskilab.bsky.social 🧵 #outreach #fungi #plant #science
- Firstly: the Mycorrhiza Relay Race 🌻🍄 A two-player game, fungus and plant partners alternate turns, navigating a maze to find nutrients or growing leaves to catch sunshines, respectively. Fastest team wins! Photo: Festival of Plants 2025, after 4hrs of relay races...
- Second: our online game, the Adventures of a Friendly Fungus! Play your way through the challenging life of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus. Better for slightly older kids, often a hit with adults too 😅 scratch.mit.edu/projects/501...
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View full threadWhat else are people using for public engagement with mycorrhiza? Would be keen to hear other ideas 😁
- A great letter from @frewecologist.bsky.social- very important and timely. And spot on that live imaging + the AMSlide is providing plenty of insights into this! More soon...🔬
- We often measure AM fungal colonisation assuming it tells us something about function. But… what does it tell us? A short Letter where I ask what root colonisation really means for plant growth, P uptake, and defence. #Mycorrhiza #fungi #plantmicrobiome nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Just a particularly pretty arbuscule in a rice root cell colonised by the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, with a cool view down an intercellular hypha. Stained with WGA-Alexafluor488, imaged by CLSM, false-coloured by depth in root 🔥 #microscopy #mycosci #fungi
- Nearly time for the Festival of Plants 2025!!! We'll be in the Pop-up Plant Science tent with microscopes, crafts, games and much more mycorrhizal fun🔬🖍️🎨🧩 @paszkowskilab.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social @cropscicentre.bsky.social #mycosci #fungi #plants
- 🌿Festival of Plants 2025 - have you got your ticket yet?🌿Saturday 14 June 10am - 5pm. Join us for a day celebrating the fascinating world of plants. Free tours, interactive science, family fun, Ask the Gardener, food trucks & entertainment. Book now: bit.ly/3FbGEFU
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyNew paper! The Increased Environmental Niche of Dual‐Mycorrhizal Woody Species. Ecology Letters: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Dual-host woody species occupy a broader geographical range and environmental niche space compared to those associating exclusively with either AM or EM.
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Been looking at the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Gigaspora margarita this week. Not only does it form ENORMOUS spores, but also bunches of knobbly 'auxiliary cells'. Can't find a description of auxiliary cell function anywhere...does anyone know what they do? #mycosci #fungi
- Reposted by Jen McGaleySharing some of my own #mycorrhiza #microscopy from @paszkowskilab.bsky.social Rhizophagus irregularis inside a rice lateral root (plant & fungal CWs stained with calcofluor white, 400x mag)
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Some chunky hyphae and arbuscules of the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, running along the length of a rice root. Coloured by depth in the root. #mycosky #fungi #microscopy
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Roots are busy places... here's a rice root packed with mycorrhizal fungal arbuscules 🔬
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyGood news for fungal networks in Europe as the EU moves towards healthier soils. The Soil Monitoring Law will pave the way for healthier soils that benefit us, and our environment: buff.ly/SodAQYg Protect soils. Protect the Underground. 📷 Seth Carnill and Quentin van den Bossche
- Reposted by Jen McGaley"Tropical tree in Panama has evolved to kill its 'enemies' with lightning" www.livescience.com/planet-earth... Original paper in @newphyt.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 No rice this week: instead a beautiful arbuscule formed by native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (identity unknown) within a Plantago root. This animation takes you through a z-stack 🔬
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyアメリカセンダングサ（Bidens frondosa）の根に形成されたアーバスキュラー菌根菌の樹枝状体。 外来種の繁殖にもアーバスキュラー菌根菌が影響している可能性があります。
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Neighbouring arbuscules formed by the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis. Makes the rice root look like an apartment block full of fungal inhabitants 🌃🌇
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Some chunky hyphae of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis forming fungal pipelines inside a rice root. Coloured by depth in the root 🔬
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 View through the 3D structure of an arbuscule. This is in a rice root cell colonised by the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis 🔬
- Reposted by Jen McGaley
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyあなたが目にしているその根は、根ではなく菌根である可能性が高いのです。
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyStunning exhibition at Somerset House, London, reveals the world at our feet. Artists and thinkers unearth the soil’s secrets and connect the underground to the big issues facing our planet today. Great to see our film playing at the exhibition. Watch it here: youtu.be/0-hS4HoW5fM?... #fungi
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyOur newest research in @nature.com We built a robot (!) to track plant-fungal trade networks. By following half a million fungal highways & nutrient flows within them, we discovered how plants & fungi build hyper-efficient supply chains www.nature.com/articles/s41... 📹 @sasaspacal.bsky.social
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyOur Public Engagement webpage has had an update! Take a look to see what our lab have been up to 😁 festivals, talks, articles, workshops and plenty of fun and games 👾🌻🍄 www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/gro... @camplantsci.bsky.social @cropscicentre.bsky.social #outreach #sciart #education
- Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 I spend most days looking at arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in rice roots. But here is some maize for a change 🌽🌽🌽 a root cortical cell hosting a young arbuscule, stained with WGA-Alexafluor488 and imaged by confocal microscopy
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyHow do fungi explore a root system over time? Spatial & temporal tracking of the Nicotiana root symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi using MycoRed. Videos, images & optimised Rhizotrons by Nicolas Garcia Hernandez @slcuplants.bsky.social Science behind it: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyIf you are interested in non-invasive timelapse microscopy of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, or want to see videos of growing and collapsing arbuscules, you can find our paper here: doi.org/10.1111/jmi....
- Great to see the @jofmicroscopy.bsky.social Botanical Microscopy Special Issue compiled, complete with a mycorrhizal front cover 😊 already looking forward to the next International Botanical Microscopy Meeting!
- Arbuscule on the front cover! Happy to have our paper included in this Botanical Microscopy Special Issue of the Journal of Microscopy @royalmicrosoc.bsky.social 🔬 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/13652818...
- Reposted by Jen McGaleyHello Bluesky! This is the account of the Cereal Symbiosis Lab run by Prof. Uta Paszkowski at @cropscicentre.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social, researching arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in cereal crops 🍄🌾🌽 Looking forward to reconnecting with the mycorrhiza community on this new platform!
