In early 2025, a group of biologists working under constrained circumstances made a notable discovery: two new species of the single-celled organism Paulinella. This breakthrough, achieved in an improvised laboratory in a North Carolina motel, highlights both the resilience of scientific inquiry amid funding uncertainties and the ongoing effort to illuminate life’s evolutionary origins.
Paulinella, a photosynthetic microbe characterized by a scaly, grenade-shaped body containing sausage-like green structures, is of particular interest to evolutionary biologists because it represents a rare example of a critical biological event occurring twice in Earth’s history. About 1.5 billion years ago, a single-celled organism incorporated a photosynthetic bacterium, creating an organelle that eventually gave rise to plants and algae. This cellular merger was long believed unique until the discovery of Paulinella’s similar event around 100 million years ago. The relatively recent nature of this evolutionary process allows researchers to study an ongoing transition that shaped complex photosynthetic life.
The newly identified Paulinella species were found during a field sampling expedition led by evolutionary biologist Julia Van Etten. Frustrated by federal funding freezes introduced early in the Trump administration—initially suspending support from organizations including the National Science Foundation—Van Etten and other early-career scientists faced uncertainty in continuing their work. Despite these challenges, Van Etten persevered, conducting multiple sample collections in North Carolina’s brackish waters over several years.
The April 2025 trip proved especially productive. Van Etten was joined by Andrew Willoughby, a postdoctoral researcher from Duke University with a background in plant genomes, and John Burns, a senior scientist from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Utilizing a combination of improvised and traditional tools, including a manually operated mouth pipette, the team isolated Paulinella specimens from the collected samples. Under high-resolution electron microscopy, they identified distinct morphological differences suggesting the presence of two previously undescribed species.
Genetic analysis conducted by evolutionary biologist Hwan Su Yoon at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea confirmed the discovery. Yoon previously contributed to the identification of other Paulinella species and is actively engaged in research exploring the organism’s genetic and evolutionary significance.
The findings add to a total of six recognized photosynthetic Paulinella species globally. Their study promises insight into how cellular symbiosis and gene transfer contributed to the emergence of complex life forms by effectively “domesticating” photosynthetic bacteria. Scientists believe this research could also inform efforts to engineer photosynthetic organisms artificially and deepen understanding of evolutionary processes that may have parallels beyond Earth.
This collaboration was born in part from necessity during a period of disrupted funding, highlighting the scientific community’s adaptability and the importance of informal networks in sustaining research momentum. Van Etten, who will be establishing a new laboratory at the University of Maryland, emphasizes the broader implications of such work. “If more people were doing this,” she said, “how many things we’d be learning about the planet and our health and where we came from.”
The ongoing study of Paulinella provides a rare glimpse into a fundamental evolutionary step. As scientists continue to catalog microbial diversity through both formal and citizen science efforts, these discoveries underscore that even modest-scale investigations can yield significant advances in understanding life’s complex history.