Matthew W. Brown

The paper describes a new amoeba species, Sappinia lukoli, that aggregates and hijacks the fruiting bodies of other protists in dung, showcasing convergent cooperative behavior across eukaryotic supergroups.

The paper examines the role of transposable elements in the evolution of multicellularity across protist lineages by analyzing TE composition, diversity, and gene regulation patterns.

This study resolves the phylogenetic placement of Argynnia by analyzing genomic data and proposes a new infraorder and family to accommodate it within Arcellinida.

CSI-SSU screens genomic datasets for contamination and taxonomic accuracy using phylogenetic methods, demonstrating its utility on the P10K database.

The paper validates the genus Pocheina by showing that its SSU rRNA sequence was contaminated, leading to the recognition of three major lineages in Acrasidae.

The paper introduces GTRpmix, a model for profile mixture models that improves exchangeability matrix estimation for site-heterogeneous data, enhancing phylogenetic accuracy.

This study uses phylogenomic data and fossil records to estimate divergence times of Arcellinida and related taxa, revealing key evolutionary events in heterotrophic eukaryotes.

The paper introduces nucl_matrix_constructor.py, a tool to build nucleotide-based phylogenomic matrices using curated DNA sequences from the PhyloFisher database.

This study modifies the Smart-seq2 protocol to improve single-cell transcriptomics for protists, finding that freeze-thaw cycles enhance transcript recovery.