François-Xavier Joly

Microenvironmental variability differently predicts microorganism‐ and fauna‐driven litter decomposition Our study focused on local-scale variation in litter decomposition using a spatially explicit and untargeted network of 113 plots across a 9-ha Chinese fir forest. Interestingly, we found variation i....

📄 New paper out in @journalofecology.bsky.social

...where we show an unexpectedly high variation in litter decomposition rates within a 9-ha forest, despite keeping macroclimate, vegetation and litter quality constant!

🍃🍂🦠🪱🌲

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Poster showing the following text: PhD in microbial mechanisms of soil carbon cycling. Soil microbes shape the global carbon cycle in life and death. We study the effect of aboveground land management on belowground soil carbon cycling processes. We aim create a scalable understanding of microbial processes from single cells to populations to communities to ecosystems. Pictures with text: peatland restoration, sustainable agriculture and woodland regeneration.

📢 Funded PhD opportunities for UK candidates in beautiful Edinburgh. Get in touch if you're interested in a PhD on understanding the mechanisms of soil carbon cycling and the role of microbes. We work in different ecosystems: peatlands, forests and agricultural soils. Please repost/spread the word.

Microenvironmental variability differently predicts microorganism‐ and fauna‐driven litter decomposition Our study focused on local-scale variation in litter decomposition using a spatially explicit and untargeted network of 113 plots across a 9-ha Chinese fir forest. Interestingly, we found variation i....

📄 New paper out in @journalofecology.bsky.social

...where we show an unexpectedly high variation in litter decomposition rates within a 9-ha forest, despite keeping macroclimate, vegetation and litter quality constant!

🍃🍂🦠🪱🌲

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌳 One of my dearest projects—with brilliant friends and colleagues—is out in @NatureComms

We show that how you plant tree species (not just which) can significantly boost forest functioning.

🔗 rdcu.be/evtXs

👇 A short thread

This looks interesting, but the link doesn't work and I can't find it on the website. Can you check, @journalofecology.bsky.social ?

Amateur. Next time make sure you don't leave your phone on selfie mode!

Hi Bluesky! I'm Fabien, I'm an agronomist and soil scientist at INRAE. My current research digs into the impacts of agricultural systems on soil carbon storage. I like combining experimental and modelling approaches. Here, I'll mainly share news on my research.
More info ⬇️
orcid.org/0000-0002-20...

Tree Diversity Increases Forest Temperature Buffering via Enhancing Canopy Density and Structural Diversity Making use of 6 years of microclimate measurements in a large-scale tree diversity experiment covering a species richness gradient ranging from 1 to 24 tree species, we demonstrate that tree species ...

🌴🌳 Tree species richness increases climate buffering 🌡️🥵

I am so happy to share our latest piece, now published in Ecology Letters!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Academic mentees thrive in big groups, but survive in small groups - Nature Human Behaviour Using longitudinal genealogical data on mentor–mentee relations and their publications, the authors find that mentees trained in larger groups tend to exhibit superior academic performance compared wi...

Lower survival rate among trainees in labs with highly productive mentors raises important concerns about what we value in academia. Many interesting things to stew over with this paper!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

No short-term response of microbial or isopod-driven litter decomposition to microplastics Microplastic pollution is a growing threat to soils, but its effects on plant litter decomposition remains poorly understood. Particularly, it is uncl…

📣 Our paper on the effect of microplastics on decomposition is out in Applied Soil Ecology: "No short-term response of microbial or isopod-driven litter decomposition to microplastics". ​

⚠️ Spoiler: We do not report any significant effect, and yes it matters.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper in diamond open-access @peercomjournal.bsky.social
Reducing mineral fertilizer use in mountain grasslands could improve the ability of their soil to maintain their multifunctionality during drought.
Last chapter of my PhD 5 y latter. #NewPI never give up publish your science! #Soilscience

Exploring R Package Usage in Academia I am running a quick survey to find out which R packages academics use the most in their research and teaching. The goal is to see which tools are essential, spot any gaps, and maybe even discover som...

Hi there, my student is making a survey about the use of R packages in Ecology, could you please spend two mins on filling it 🥹 Very appreciated! And if you could spread it further (RT), that would be just awesome. ❤️

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

No short-term response of microbial or isopod-driven litter decomposition to microplastics Microplastic pollution is a growing threat to soils, but its effects on plant litter decomposition remains poorly understood. Particularly, it is uncl…

📣 Our paper on the effect of microplastics on decomposition is out in Applied Soil Ecology: "No short-term response of microbial or isopod-driven litter decomposition to microplastics". ​

⚠️ Spoiler: We do not report any significant effect, and yes it matters.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Can you see the forest for the fungi?

Check out our new research examining this in depth in Conservation Biology 💫

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1523...

A photograph of a brown stick insect standing on a tree stump, with its head and front legs raised in the air.

A photograph of the head of a brown stick insect, with its black and yellow patterned compound eyes in focus.

This gorgeous creature is the prickly stick insect (Acanthoxyla prasina), one of New Zealand's 23 species of stick insect.

Huge thanks to @morganemerien.bsky.social for pointing this out on a recent University of Canterbury field trip - it's great fun teaching entomology!

#Invertebrate 🧪

An example of spam email from dubious journals inviting me to submit a manuscript to their journal (for a fee of course).

Dear colleagues,

If you use "Greetings of the day!", "distinguished speaker", or "your valuable submission" in your emails, my new bespoke spam filter will mark is as read and delete it. Works like a charm for now.

I eagerly await for your valuable spam-filtering term suggestions. 🙏⤵️

A photograph of a velvet worm - an orange and purple-patterned invertebrate composed of many soft segments and tiny spined legs. The velvet worm has long, segmented antenna and a pair of organs on its head which squirt glue for prey capture.

A photograph of a velvet worm - an Blue and yellow-patterned invertebrate composed of many soft segments and tiny spined legs. The velvet worm has long, segmented antenna and a pair of organs on its head which squirt glue for prey capture.

Introducing New Zealand's latest Bug of the Year- the magnificent Ngāokeoke / Velvet Worm!

NZ has two genera: one lays eggs (Ooperipatellus, 1st photo) and another gives live birth (Peripatoides, 2nd). They also deposit sperm which burrow through their partner's skin, but that's another story! 🧪

YouTube video by Écran de savoirs Il a détourné un scanner de bureau pour ça ! Ep.6 Christophe Jourdan

Notre unité a mis au point des scanners enterrés pour étudier la dynamique racinaire puis plus largement les interactions biologiques dans le sol. La chaine "écran de savoir" des universités de l’Occitanie-Est, présente en vidéo cette innovation technologique :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgDe...

A photograph of a giant springtail on a decaying log. The springtail has soft blue skin, and is covered in soft, pointy yellow spines.

A photograph of a velvet worm on a decaying log. The velvet worm has many legs, soft blue skin, and is covered in beautiful orange dots scattered randomly over its body.

A photograph of a pair of leaf-veined slugs on a decaying log. One is orange and the other is green, and both have a leaf vein-like branching depression running down the midline of their bodies, giving them a leaf-like appearance.

A photograph of a manuka chafer beetle walking on a bright yellow sheet. The beetle is beautifully iridescent green with orange-brown legs.

We're all on tenterhooks waiting for the results to be announced tomorrow for the NZ Bug of the Year competition!

Here's a few of my favourite contenders. Now voting is over I'll admit I have been quietly rooting for the velvet worm too - they're amazing animals!

Good luck #TeamGiantSpringtail!

Science is under threat

Women are credited less in science than men - Nature The difference between the number of men and women listed as authors on scientific papers and inventors on patents is at least partly attributable to unacknowledged contributions by women scientists.

On #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience let me remind you that we are NOWHERE NEAR parity. A few examples.

1. Women are credited less in science than men.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The first many-analysts study in ecology is finally published! 🥳🙌

300+ coauthors and 5+ years, this was a massive effort by @elliotgould.bsky.social Hannah Fraser Tim Parker and co.

Open access 👉 bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Hello, Bluesky! ☀️

We fund frontier research in Europe—bold ideas, unexpected discoveries and science that shapes the future. So it’s only fitting we’ve landed here. Sorry for being late.

Follow us for updates on ERC funding, research policy, and our grantees' discoveries.

A caterpillar-like leaf beetle larva rests on a leaf of Baccharis. It is iridescent like an oil slick and excreting a wet fecal pellet.

Beauty & the Feces.

groundselbush #beetle #larva #Chrysomelidae #Trirhabda bacharidis (Raleigh, NC, USA)

« Nous appelons à l’organisation d’une convention nationale de l’éthique environnementale de la recherche » TRIBUNE. Tamara Ben Ari et Aude Valade, chercheuses en écologie et agronomie, estiment que les initiatives existantes ne suffisent pas pour dessiner une recherche éthique, alignée avec les impératifs ...

Tough but essential debate for our labs. Aude Valade from our unit and Tamara Ben Ari, call for a convention on the environmental ethics of research: How do we decide what research to continue? What criteria to evaluate energy-consuming research? How can we distribute reductions? Paper in French 🇫🇷

@umr-ecosols.bsky.social

Eco&Sols has now moved to bluesky! Our research unit works on functional ecology and biogeochemistry in agroecosystems, from the biodiversity in soil aggregates, to plant-soil interactions and global C cycle. This account will share publications, project updates, job opportunities and more.

Life history strategies of soil bacterial communities across global terrestrial biomes - Nature Microbiology Analysis of metagenomes from across the globe reveals the spectrum of soil microbial functional diversity based on community aggregated traits.

Hi bluesky! I will only share news on my research here. My main topics are microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. My current research digs into the functioning of root-soil system in deep horizons of agroforestry systems and the global life history strategies of soil bacteria.
Recent publications 👇

Causal Inference With Observational Data and Unobserved Confounding Variables As ecology tackles progressively larger problems, we are moving beyond the scales at which randomised controlled experiments are feasible. Using observational data for causal inference raises the pro...

Interesting new paper on inference with observational data in ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I would be a bit more nuanced, but it's not far off. If one only cares about carbon, planting trees can sometimes be useful, though not as much as we think, and it can be even detrimental in carbon-rich soils (peat/peaty soils, tundra, etc).