Holobionts and Their Hologenomes

The 2015 American Society of Microbiology general meeting kicks off on Sunday in New Orleans (#ASM2015 for Tweeters). The agenda looks incredible (as usual, ASM is one of the best conferences of the year), and I am very excited to announce the Monday 2pm session: "Holobionts and Their Hologenomes". As far as I am aware, it is the first symposium for the topic at a major society meeting. We've got a great gender balance of speakers, including the headliners and pioneers in the area, Eugene and Ilana Rosenberg. We're missing many other pioneers who I wished to include, but alas the session is populated by senior and junior investigators and students - the way ASM likes it and it should be. We should work to have a future meeting solely on the topic. My thanks to all of the speakers and session shepherds Joerg Graf and Ned Ruby for their input along the way. If you're going to ASM, stop by Room 260 on Monday at 2pm. 

I believe this session and scholarship echoes the sentiment expressed by the late Carl Woese when he wrote in 2004: 

"The time has come to replace the purely reductionist eyes down molecular perspective with a new and genuinely holistic, eyes up, view of the living world, one whose primary focus is on evolution, emergence, and biology's innate complexity." 

Though instead of "replace", "unify" works best. 

Convener6/1/2015 2:00:00 PMSeth Bordenstein; Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN

Presentations: From the First Eukaryote to Man: The Hologenome Concept6/1/2015 2:00:00 PMEugene I. Rosenberg and I. Zilber-Rosenberg; Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv, Israel Nerve Cells are Involved in Maintenance of the Hydra Holobiont6/1/2015 2:30:00 PMKatja Schroder; Zoological Inst., Kiel, Germany A Critical Role of the Plant Microbiome for Immunocompetency6/1/2015 2:45:00 PMJ. M. Kremer1, B. Kvitko1, J. P. Jerome1, J. M. Tiedje1, S. He2;  1Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI, 2Howard Hughes Med. Inst., East Lansing, MI Sponge Hologenomics: Unlocking the Ianthella basta Symbiome6/1/2015 3:00:00 PMNicole Webster; Australian Inst. of Marine Sci., Townsville, Australia Amphibian-Microbial Symbiosis: Unraveling the Role of Host Species, Habitat, and the Pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis on Skin Bacterial Community Structure6/1/2015 3:30:00 PME. A. Rebollar Caudillo1, M. Hughey2, D. Medina2, S. Loftus2, L. L. House2, R. N. Harris1, L. K. Belden2;  1James Madison Univ., Harrisonburg, VA, 2Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Microbe-Cycling in Tree Sloths Facilitated by Pyralid Moths6/1/2015 3:45:00 PMK. A. Dill-McFarland1, J. N. Pauli1, M. Z. Peery1, P. J. Weimer1,2, G. Suen1;  1Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 2USDA Agricultural Res. Service, Madison, WI It Takes a Village: Community Interactions in the Fungus-Growing Ant Symbiosis6/1/2015 4:00:00 PMJonathan L. Klassen; Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT