Avant-Garde Asgards

Presenting at Sydney Micro, an annual meeting for early career microbiologists from NSW, Fraser MacLeod from the Burns Lab brought the ecology with a talk on the elusive Asgard archaea. Fraser presented his research on the proposed ecological niche of Asgard archaea, finding them to be dominant members of microbial mat communities that can both act antagonistically and to the benefit of other microbial groups. Fraser explained how continued research into the Asgard archaea not only has many important evolutionary implications, but also provides key information on carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling in the marine subsurface.