This month's ERGA BioGenome Analysis & Applications Seminar will feature talks by Emile Gluck-Thaler and Aaron Vogan on the recently discovered Starship giant transposons and their implications for the study of fungal evolution and adaptation. See more details below Wednesday, September 30th 2026 - 16:00 CEST Abstract Talk 1: Starship transposons and the makings of a new framework to understand fungal evolution Talk 2: Starship transposons: Drivers of adaptation across fungi Starships are a recently discovered superfamily of giant transposons found across hundreds of fungal species. Starships are fundamentally unlike typical eukaryotic transposons because they span hundreds of kilobases and mobilize dozens of genes, including those encoding phenotypes ranging from stress resistance to host-microbe interactions. Although we have known about the existence of Starships for only five years, sustained efforts and collaborations are rapidly establishing systems to move from identifying genomic patterns to characterizing the genetic processes underpinning Starship biology, including their roles as vectors of fungal-to-fungal horizontal gene transfer. We argue that the little we know about Starships already raises important questions about the mechanisms of adaptation across medically, agriculturally and economically important groups of fungi. Drawing on examples of Starship activity spanning individual species to entire phyla, we build on existing models of fungal genome biology to propose that Starships are a distinct genomic compartment whose dynamics must be considered to fully understand and predict the mode and tempo of fungal evolution. Speakers Dr. Emile Gluck-Thaler Assistant professor, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dr. Gluck-Thaler received his PhD in 2019 from the Ohio State University. In 2023, he began his current position as an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is the PI of the Fungal Interactions Lab. The goal of the Fungal Interactions Lab is to better understand the fungi that threaten plant and human health with a focus on answering the question: how do fungi acquire new strategies for interacting with other organisms, including humans, plants and other microbes? Dr. Aaron Vogan, Docent, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Institute of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University Received his PhD from McMaster University in 2016. In 2020 received funds to begin his own research group at Uppsala University. In 2024 became an associate professor. He is the PI of the Fungal Accessory Genome Evolution lab, where we seek to understand how within population/species variation shapes fungal evolution and adaptation. Research encompasses human and plant pathogens, as well as model organisms across filamentous fungi. We seek to obtain comprehensive views of fungal biology by integrating molecular biology, physiology, population and comparative genomics to uncover how these organisms are capable of adapting to nearly every niche on Earth.

News Upcoming Seminar: Starship transposons & fungal evolution The Data Analysis Committee is relaunching its seminar series in collaboration with the BGE+ BioGenome App Network. The first session will take place on 30 September and focus on comparative genomics, featuring talks by Emile Gluck-Thaler and Aaron Vogan on the recently discovered Starship giant transposons and their implications for the study of fungal evolution and adaptation. See more details here. Mark your calendars: seminars will now run every month, offering a regular space for the ERGA community to explore tools, methods, and applications in genomic data analysis. ERGA Community Genomes: 55 Species and Counting TThe ERGA Community Genomes spreadsheet now tracks 55 species from individual labs and collaborations across the community. This spreadsheet supplies information about ERGA community genome projects to the Genomes on a Tree (GoaT) platform. If you are working on a reference genome and haven't added your entry yet, reach out to request edit access: secretariat@erga-biodiversity.org CONSENSA Consensus Standards for Applied Biodiversity Genomics Launching November 2026 The new CONSENSA COST Action officially launches in November 2026. Over the next four years, CONSENSA will work to harmonise methods for genome-wide genetic diversity analysis across the community, through 5 Working Groups covering protocols, metadata management, conservation applications, capacity building, and communication. Benefits for ERGA members include travel reimbursement for meetings and conference grants. You can apply to join a Working Group directly via the COST website and Management Committee recruitment from ERGA countries is still open; see the current list here (max. 2 per country). Mollusc Genomics Workshop 2026 Another successful Mollusc Genomics Workshop took place in Frankfurt from 30 August – 3 September, organised by Julia Sigwart and Carola Greve. The workshop featured excellent research presentations alongside discussions on the ongoing challenges limiting the production of high-quality mollusc genomes, a taxonomic group that still lags behind others due to difficult DNA extraction and highly repetitive genome assemblies. ERGA members interested in mollusc genomics are warmly invited to join future discussions on this topic! 🐌 Annotation Committee: Get Feedback on Your Annotations! The Annotation Committee is inviting ERGA members to get involved! If you're working on a genome annotation and would like feedback, you're welcome to reach out to the committee. They're now incorporating this into the last 15 minutes of each monthly meeting, a great opportunity to discuss your work with the community. The next Annotation committee meeting will happen on Tuesday October 13th - write to annotation@erga-biodiversity.eu to join! BGE+ Cascade Funding: Country Readiness Update The country readiness survey for the BGE+ cascade funding call has now been completed by 29 countries, helping shape calls that reflect the community's needs. Proposal development webinars will follow early next year. Details will be announced soon in upcoming ERGA plenaries and newsletters. Highlighted publication: Bat1K Publishes in Nature 🦇 ERGA Associate Partner, the Bat1K project has published its first-phase results in Nature: 103 chromosome-level bat genomes, including 42 new ones, covering all 21 bat families. Together with fossil data, they yield a revised bat family tree and suggest that bats, and powered flight, originated in Europe in the late Palaeocene. Congratulations to the whole Bat1K consortium! Events Integrating Scales in Planetary Biology Uppsala, 28–30 October 2026 From genomes to ecosystems: how does biology at every scale shape resilience on a changing planet? SciLifeLab's follow-up to the 2025 EMBO Lisbon workshop, with a dedicated Biodiversity Decline session and speakers including Anne Magurran, Arnau Sebé-Pedrós and Detlev Arendt. Abstracts by 7 September. https://lyyti.events/p/Integrating_Scales_in_Planetary_Biology_5919 LRUA 2026 – Long-Read Sequencing Uppsala Uppsala, 2–4 November 2026 The annual long-read sequencing meeting from NGI and Clinical Genomics Uppsala, this year with a Biodiversity workshop and speakers including Evan Eichler, Rosa Fernández and Linnea Smeds. The week after Planetary Biology – one trip, two meetings. Abstracts by 26 August. https://lrua.se/ 5th BioHackathon Germany Göttingen, Germany | 7 - 12 December BioHackathon 2026 9-13 November | Barcelona, Spain 2027 Student Conference on Conservation Science 30 March - 01 April, 2027 | Cambridge, UK IBE PhD Symposium 2026 October 15 | Barcelona, Spain Featured conferences with sessions organized by ERGA members: Are you attending events or organizing sessions/workshops not listed here? Let us know here, we can help you reach more attendees from the biodiversity genomics community! From the #ERGABlog When genomes meet local knowledge Building shared standards for biodiversity genomics in Europe The Biodiversity Genomics alphabet 2: RNA Useful links HAVE ANYTHING TO SHARE? Click and Submit to ERGANews! Click here to become an ERGA Member Public EVENTS calendar here - add this to your Calendar or iCalendar! 💬 Follow us on social media! BlueSky LinkedIn YouTube

News End of Term: Thank You to Our Chair and Vice Chairs! As we approach the end of the current 3-year term, we want to thank our Chair Rob Waterhouse and Vice Chairs, Ann Mc Cartney and Olga Vinnere Pettersson, for their dedicated service to ERGA. In the coming weeks, we will be launching a call for participation in the ERGA Nominations Working Group, a great opportunity to get involved in ERGA governance and help ensure our election process remains robust and true to our principles of diversity and inclusion. The Working Group will identify candidates and organise the ERGA Council voting, with the goal of announcing the new Chair and Vice Chairs at the November Council meeting. Stay tuned for more details on how to get involved! Biodiversity Genomics Europe plus (BGE+) Call for Project Proposals The ERGA community is preparing proposals for the upcoming BGE+ Call for Project Proposals, offering EUR 30K to 60K for reference genome production and/or application. See the June Plenary slides for full context. We're assessing country readiness and helping teams form ahead of the call. Council representatives play a supportive role — sharing information and connecting interested members, rather than coordinating a single national submission. Note: terms, eligibility, and evaluation criteria are still being finalised by BGE+, so details may change. More updates will follow at ERGA Plenary Meetings throughout 2026. Bulgaria at center stage of Lepidoptera Genomics 🦋 From 15–19 June 2026, Vlahi in Bulgaria's Kresna Gorge hosted a first-of-its-kind expedition: over 50 entomologists, genomics experts, and conservationists from 17 countries gathered to collect specimens for sequencing Europe's butterflies and moths. Led by the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the event brought together three collaborating initiatives — Project Psyche Project Psyche, COST Action CA23122 (10kLepGenomes), and LepEU.— with partners including Lund University, Stockholm University, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The expedition's emblematic species was Janthinea forsterorum, a Balkan endemic moth described in 2025. The event marks an important step toward building a regional genomics hub in the Balkans. Check out some photos: CONSENSA – Consensus Standards for Applied Biodiversity Genomics The new CONSENSA COST network funding offers ERGA Members a great opportunity to develop solutions to improve standards in biodiversity genomics research using reference genomes. Its aim is to establish consensus-based standards for generating, analysing, and applying genome-wide biodiversity data — making genomic evidence accurate, comparable, and usable for research, conservation, bioeconomy, and policy. You can apply to join one of the 5 CONSENSA Working Groups directly via the COST website — membership also makes you eligible for funded networking activities and small grants (e.g. conference registrations). We're also recruiting Management Committee members from ERGA countries; see the current list here. This is a separate role from ERGA Council country representative, though some may hold both. More details will follow at ERGA Plenary Meetings, make sure to attend! BGE+ European Historical DNA Capability Survey As part of the Biodiversity Genomics Europe Plus (BGE+) project, we are developing methods to help the museum genomics community work more efficiently, cost-effectively, and at greater scale. This survey aims to identify the approach and capacity currently available in laboratories across Europe that deal with historical DNA. The information collected will help ensure that the methods we develop are as widely applicable and accessible as possible. Events Integrating Scales in Planetary Biology Uppsala, 28–30 October 2026 From genomes to ecosystems: how does biology at every scale shape resilience on a changing planet? SciLifeLab's follow-up to the 2025 EMBO Lisbon workshop, with a dedicated Biodiversity Decline session and speakers including Anne Magurran, Arnau Sebé-Pedrós and Detlev Arendt. Abstracts by 7 September. https://lyyti.events/p/Integrating_Scales_in_Planetary_Biology_5919 LRUA 2026 – Long-Read Sequencing Uppsala Uppsala, 2–4 November 2026 The annual long-read sequencing meeting from NGI and Clinical Genomics Uppsala, this year with a Biodiversity workshop and speakers including Evan Eichler, Rosa Fernández and Linnea Smeds. The week after Planetary Biology – one trip, two meetings. Abstracts by 26 August. https://lrua.se/ Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Conference 2026 21-25 September | Oslo, Norway / Hybrid Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes 5 - 10 October | San Feliu, Spain BioHackathon 2026 9-13 November | Barcelona, Spain 2027 Student Conference on Conservation Science 30 March - 01 April, 2027 | Cambridge, UK Featured conferences with sessions organized by ERGA members: Are you attending events or organizing sessions/workshops not listed here? Let us know here, we can help you reach more attendees from the biodiversity genomics community! From the #ERGABlog When genomes meet local knowledge Building shared standards for biodiversity genomics in Europe The Biodiversity Genomics alphabet 2: RNA Useful links HAVE ANYTHING TO SHARE? Click and Submit to ERGANews! Click here to become an ERGA Member Public EVENTS calendar here - add this to your Calendar or iCalendar! 💬 Follow us on social media! BlueSky LinkedIn YouTube

Committees SSP - Sampling & Sample Processing samples@erga-biodiversity.eu More > DAC - Data Analysis Committee analysis@erga-biodiversity.eu More > CS - Citizen Science citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu More > SAC - Sequencing and Assembly Committee assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu More > ITIC - IT & Infrastructure Committee itinfra@erga-biodiversity.eu More > TKT - Training and Knowledge Transfer training@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Annotation Committee annotation@erga-biodiversity.eu More > ELSI - Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues elsi@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Social Justice Committee socialjustice@erga-biodiversity.eu More >

samples@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back SSP - Sampling & Sample Processing samples@erga-biodiversity.eu The Sampling and Sample Processing Committee (SSP) gathers and gives information on all steps from choosing which species to generate sequences for, to sending correctly prepared samples to sequencing centers. This also includes vouchering, biobanking and standardized metadata collection, as well as exchange on best practices for sampling and lab protocols for the whole variety of organisms that ERGA aims to include. This committee is thus often the first port of call for new sequencing projects within ERGA, and closely collaborates with scientific collections and sequencing centers, as well as several other ERGA committees, on issues such as collection permits and equal opportunities for projects from all over Europe. To accomplish these diverse tasks, we depend upon input from taxonomic experts on the whole eukaryotic tree of life. ( V.1.0 02.05.2023) Co-Chairs Katja Reichel Jaakko Pohjoismäki Coordinator Rita Monteiro Steering Committee Astrid Böhne Jennifer Leonard Olga Vinnere Pettersson Torsten Hugo Struck Committee Resources 💡 ERGA Knowledge Hub ▶️ ERGA SSP Youtube Playlist Böhne, A., Fernández, R., Leonard, J.A. et al. Contextualising samples: supporting reference genomes of European biodiversity through sample and associated metadata collection. npj biodivers 3 , 26 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00053-7 ERGA News #41 - September 2026 ERGA Newsletter Starship transposons and a new framework to understand fungal evolution Events ERGA News #40 - August 2026 ERGA Newsletter

citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back CS - Citizen Science citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu The Citizen Science and Outreach Committee aims to facilitate collaboration and communication between scientists, stakeholders and citizens to increase trust in the scientific process and ensure that genomics research reflects the needs and perspectives of the broader community. By engaging a broad range of stakeholders, including policy makers, non-governmental organisations, industry representatives and citizens, the Committee seeks to foster a fruitful multi-stakeholder dialogue and support the traditional community knowledge through the use of citizen science and stakeholder perspectives. To achieve its goals, the Committee works to engage citizens and stakeholders in the research process and to promote public understanding of genomics through various public events and other activities. In addition, the Committee supports policies that support genomics research and its translation into practical applications for the benefit of society. (V.1.0 02.05.2023) Chair Elena Buzan Coordinators Christian de Guttry Luísa Marins Steering Committee Jacob Höglund Lino Ometto Svein-Ole Mikalsen Chiara Bortoluzzi ERGA News #41 - September 2026 ERGA Newsletter Starship transposons and a new framework to understand fungal evolution Events ERGA News #40 - August 2026 ERGA Newsletter