Soil Biology Group - Wageningen UR

A couple of weeks ago our Gabriel Moinet & Alix Vidal led the Grounding Carbon Farming course in Normandie🐄 together with Ina Möller, Federico Andreotti & guests experts Claire Chenu & Roman Hüppi!

🌱 Lectures 🚜 Farm visits 🧪 Field sampling 🎲 Serious game sessions 🎤 Interviews

See you next year?

Rooting for function: community‐level fine‐root traits relate to many ecosystem functions Humans are driving biodiversity change, which also alters community functional traits. However, how changes in the functional traits of the community alter ecosystem functions—especially belowground...

📢 Hot off the press in New Phytologist!
A fresh study explores the link between root traits and ecosystem functions 🌱🌍, with our very own Thom Kuyper among the co-authors! 👏

🔗 Check it out :
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

📣Amazing outreach day yesterday with the Weekend of science! More than 300 visitors looking at plants, soil...🎉

Thank you to all the collaborators, great collective effort to pass our science to the general public and a lot of kids🪱🦠🌱😀!

See you next year! weekendvandewetenschap.nl/hotspots/hot...

🎉Come to the Wageningen Hotspot of the Weekend of Science on Sunday 5th Oct!✨

You will find a variety of activities from the Soil Museum, soil painting, measuring photosynthesis, genetics, games with roots & more...

Spread the word and see you there! Info: weekendvandewetenschap.nl/hotspots/hot...

🎉Last week first observation together with NIOO, on their beautiful green rooftop, for the Bodemdierendagen! It was great success & we manage to find the tiny ten🪱🐛🐜 ..but also the little eleven🦠✨! Take your observation, is your turn now! How many soil organisms will you find?
bodemdierendagen.nl/nl

📣Come on the 5th October to Wageningen University to get some hand on soils and more during the Weekend of Science! Soil Biology group people are also going to be there to inspire about the beauty of soil organisms🪱🦠🐛🌱!!

More info: weekendvandewetenschap.nl/hotspots/hot...

Source Tamas Salanki (SBL)

📣ART&SOIL ALERT ⁉️ Studio Metaform & our PhD candidate Doina Mani will take you into the invisible world of nematodes and their ecological stories.

🎼 Join Singing Soil @ EnergieKas, The Hague, Sept 25, 2025, Free Admission via this link: lnkd.in/e7VKAUfR
Listening Session, Workshop, Co-creation

✨A big thank you to all the participants and lecturers of the Soil Biology Lab skills course for assessing soil functions 🪱🦠🌱! A week full of exchanges, discussions, activities, learning and networking! Looking forward to the next edition!🎉

Find Paolo di Lonardo at EUROSOIL 2025 in Sevilla next week

📅 Monday 8 Sept 18:00–19:00
👉 panelist in the workshop “Missions to Protect Soil”
📅 Tuesday 9 Sept 12:30–12:45
EUSO Stakeholders Forum
👉 “Rethinking Soil Health in Urban Systems: Insights from Research Trends and Field Implementation”.

🎉And yet another edition of our Soil Biology Lab skills course for assessing soil functions started today🦠🪱🐜🐛🌱! Impressive diversity of participants with different backgrounds and expertise! Looking forward to the rest of the week! 🥼🔬☕🎉

🪱 Publication Announcement! 🌱🍄‍🟫

Book chapter “Soil biology, health and ecosystem services: an overview”. We detail the process of selecting indicators to assess soil health in agricultural systems, applied to four key soil functions.

📂 Open access link:
lnkd.in/eXW6VQzu

Have a nice read!

📣Soil cluster seminar: "Disentangling the soil-plant microbiome nexus for beneficial solutions: from biostimulants to xenobiotics degradation" 🦠 from Prof. Eduardo Puglisi

☑️9th September
☑️10 to 11 am
☑️GAIA building room B001

For joining on Teams:
Meeting ID: 326 610 433 473 8
Passcode: Hy9Kp9Pf

Drivers of the geographical distribution of nematode-based indices across Europe Nematode-based indices (NBIs) are widely used as indicators of soil health, reflecting key aspects of soil functioning. However, their spatial variabi…

📣Paper alert! "Drivers of the geographical distribution of nematode-based indices across Europe" led by the PhD student Doina Mani working between SBL and SGL.

Have a nice read: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📣We are hiring a PhD candidate to work on modeling soil processes in regenerative agriculture 🌱
If you have experience in process-based modeling and a background in agriculture, we invite you to apply.
Deadline, September 30, 2025.

More info here:

lnkd.in/eGFJktsN

From global trends to local realities: SOC accrual of improved management practices in northwestern Europe Numerous meta-analyses provide rates of carbon accrual for specific management practices at global scales. However, understanding how specific farming…

📣 Paper alert: publications led by PhD Jonas Schepens at the Soil Biology group (SBL) on SOC accrual in relation to management practices in northwest Europe.

Read more here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📣Last week new doctor Enno Sonntag, joint PhD with Thuenen Institute of Organic Farming, successfully defended his thesis:

“Earthworm Farming for Circular Food Systems: Upcycling Residual Biomass into Edible Protein and Organic Soil Amendments.” 🪱🪱

Congratulations Dr. Enno!🎉

Phosphorus fertilization of grasses with dairy processing waste materials and contributions of soil microorganisms towards phosphorus uptake Dairy processing waste (DPW) is one of the largest agro-industrial residues globally and has the potential of reducing the dependency on mineral phosp…

📣♻️ Turning dairy processing waste into phosphorus fertilizer? Absolutely — with a little help from soil microbes! 🌱
Dive into the final chapter of Angel Velasco-Sánchez’s PhD thesis @geoderma.bsky.social, also with Gabriel Moinet and @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🎉Very nice workshop on public engagement, communication and soil literacy last week in collaboration with Stephan Mantel from ISRIC during the Soil@WUR day! Bulding a community here 💪🎉

✨Very nice workshop on art and soils organized by Giulia Bongiorno, Erne Blondeau and Tullia Calogiuri from our department! This is one way to connect with soil..

Thanks to ISRIC for hosting us at the amazing Soil museum and to Erika Henskens for guinding us through the world of soil pigments🎨

✨Congratulations for the new exposition featuring the work of various colleagues of the SBL group!🎉🖌️🎨If you are around campus go to visit it in IMPULSE building! 🪱🐛🦠🐜

Determination of phosphorus pools, sorption capacity and supply potential of agricultural soils of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia Phosphorus (P) is a major limiting nutrient for food production in Ethiopian agricultural soils, primarily due to low P fertilizer application and str…

📣New publication led by our PhD student Gidena Reda: "Determination of phosphorus pools, sorption capacity and supply potential of agricultural soils of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia".🎉

Enjoy the read! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🎉New publication led by Guusje Koorneef with authors from our group, Soil Chemistry group, NIOO and France.

"Understanding the effects of organic versus conventional farming on soil organic carbon characteristics – a chronosequence study".

Enjoy the read! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

❓What do we do as soil biologist in our weekends? This is real love for soils and its inhabitants🪱🦠🐛🐜! Thank you to Giulia Bongiorno from our department, the Bodemdierendagen team of NIOO and ARTIS!

Interested in soil outreach activities? Join the upcoming World of Soils lecture at the ISRIC World Soil Museum: "Soil and people connected through different perspectives - a soil biologist's journey" by Giulia Bongiorno from the SBL group.
📆 11 June
⏰ 12:25-13:00
🔗 Register: lnkd.in/eCNCuHzQ

📣🎉Join the the Month of Art @WUR in June! Also the Soil Science cluster will be participating with an inspiring art-science collaboration and workshops about soil (of course ;) )!🎨🖌️

✨Amazing event yesterday in the center of Wageningen, of course the Soil Biology group was also present to inspire and share knowledge about soil biodiversity🪱🦠 to the public📣! see you next year!

🎉New design addition to the SBL coffee room 😊 our PhD
@tulca.bsky.social designed the fabric, our education coordination Florien Vernooy re-upholstered this chair with it. Tullia designed also some SBL logos and is working on her portfolio! Florien is also an upholsterer: www.atelierflorien.nl✨🪱✨

Curious about the state of biodiversity in the Netherlands? 🌿
The latest report has all the insights ▶️ www.naturalis.nl/system/files... (in Dutch).
Our very own Thom Kuyper co-authored the section on fungi—who else but the 'mushroom man' himself? 🍄😊

📣The Soil Cluster is participating to the Biodiversity challenge organized by WUR to share its enthusiasm about soil biodiversity 🪱🦠🌱

Where: Wageningen market square
When: Saturday 24th April from 9 am till 15!

For more information check: www.wur.nl/en/research-...

📣Our own Dr. Paolo di Lonardo I will give a talk during the webinar on 'Soil Health Indicators: from selection to sampling". Paolo will present some of the first results of Soil Health Benchmarks 🦠 🍄‍🟫 🪱 🕷️ ☘️ Don't miss it!

For registrations: soilcommunity.app/event-64