Soil Science Cluster WUR

📣Don't forget this week appointment withthe Soil cluster!

Talk from Hans Lambers (Uni of West Australia) on 'Dirt-poor soils, pesky parasites and friendly fungi shape plant diversity in south-western Australia'
Wednesday 26th February
15:30-16:30 Gaia 1

See you there!

Nice article on 'Transformative soil science' course hold in November 2024 by WIMEK and led by PhD Wietse Wiersma (SOC), was published on 'The jester', written by Dienke Stomph (cultural geography) & Kate Foster (environmental artist). There will be another edition of the course, info will follow!

👁️With help from WUR-Library we have created an overview of the ca. 90 peer-reviewed papers published in 2024 by the Soil Science cluster (SBL, SGL, SOC and SLM), where the first author is or was part of the Soil Science Cluster. Look what we have bee found below!! The titles can be summarised into:

PhD position to explore the potential and sustainability of rice cultivation in NW Europe

The Soil Geography and Landscape group is looking for a motivaed PhD! Take your change and spread the word!

www.wur.nl/nl/vacature/...

Colleagues Luciana Chavez Rodriguez&Paolo di Lonardo spent 3 days at EcoEnvAI (Ljubljana, SI) to discuss Soil Health Benchmarks @shbenchmarks.bsky.social: 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 SH, 𝐂𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬&𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐬⁣⁣, 𝐃𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭&𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬⁣⁣, 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬&𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧⁣⁣!!

Frontiers | Accounting for retarded weathering products in comparing methods for quantifying carbon dioxide removal in a short-term enhanced weathering study

📣𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗪𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 led by Emily te Pas from the Soil chemistry group!
They quantified the fractions of weathering products that were retained within the soil profile and leached from soils........
Interested to read more?
www.frontiersin.org/journals/cli...

Save the date and join the 19th International RAMIRAN conference on managing organic resources in agriculture: opportunities and challenges! Wageningen (The Netherlands) from 15-17 October 2025. Check out the website with all the latest info: www.ramiran2025.nl

PhD position: Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) as a robust tool for river science

Curious about how rivers functioned in the past? What impact animals and vegetation had on natural rivers? The Soil Physics and Land Management group (SLM) is hiring two PhDs to explore how sedimentary ancient DNA can reveal past river dynamics! Find more information here: www.wur.nl/nl/vacature/...

⁉️We asked a group of motivated students to assess the environmental impact of courses provided by Soil Science Cluster. They came up with a hands-on calculation tool, which can be adjusted to other courses! The tool, explaining manual & in-depth report can be downloaded: doi.org/10.5281/zeno....

Dam builders and their works: Beaver influences on the structure and function of river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry and ecosystems Beavers (Castor fiber, Castor canadensis) are one of the most influential mammalian ecosystem engineers, heavily modifying river corridor hydrology, g…

📣New publication led by Annegret Larsen (SGL) on beavers! Beavers delivers important ES including climate change mitigate, increase water quality and retention. Thet can help us restore degraded low-order rivers for free - it just needs space along the rivers. 💧
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📣Our @sbl-wur.bsky.social colleague Paolo di Lonardo, BENCHMARKS Project Manager, will guide us through the BENCHMARK project & soil biodiversity. Don't miss it! Various departments of the @soilclusterwur.bsky.social are collaborating in the project including also Soil physics&Soil geography groups!

📣 The SLM and SBL group are just starting this new adventure. SOILTRIBES is a EU funded project about soil literacy that will embark on a powerful journey of transition and transformation, bolstered by the nexus of science, technology, arts, and society! Contact Loes Van Schaik (SLM) for info

The complementarity hypothesis reversed: Root trait similarity in species mixtures promotes soil organic carbon in agroecosystems Increasing species diversity in agroecosystems appears as a promising venue to restore or increase soil organic carbon (SOC). It has been hypothesized…

📣New paper out in SBB co-authored by our own Gerlinde De Deyn, and many others. Nice collaboration led by @au.dk, Denmark and School of Ecology in China. A metanalysis proposing a new root-trait framework to design plant mixtures for SOC in agroecosystems 🌱.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

PhD student Robin Guilmot presented his proposal on unravelling the mechanisms that link carbon use efficiency of microbial communities 🦠 & soil organic matter formation in temperate grasslands🌱. His PhD is a collaboration between our group, @unileiden.bsky.social&@niooknaw.bsky.social. Stay tuned!

Laboratory coordinator and principal technician luminescence dating laboratory

⁉️Soil Geography and Landscape (SGL group) is looking for a lab coordinator/technician!🗺️
www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/l...

📣 New paper from Karrar Mahdi (SLM group):"GIS-Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Identifying Rainwater Harvesting Sites". The paper explores suitable locations for rainwater harvesting in the western desert of Iraq to tackle climate change in arid regions. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

⁉️Did you know that the @soilclusterwur.bsky.social is directly involved in two soil literacy project focused on soil education? CURIOSOIL (curiosoil.eu) and SOILTRIBES (www.wur.nl/en/project/s...). Enhancing soil education is essectial to decrease pressures on this essential resource!🐌🍄🦠🌱

New publication from Ron de Goede from the Soil Biology group (SBL) led by Nick van Eekeren (Louis Bolk Instituut). Have a nice read! 🌱

📣Next Soil science cluster seminar: Hans Lambers, Professor at the School of Biological Science (University of West Australia) will talk about: 'Dirt-poor soils, pesky parasites and friendly fungi shape plant diversity in south-western Australia'.
26th February in Gaia 1 (WUR) 15:30-16:30.

On the 17th January the Master Course from SLM – LAND FIRST, coordinated by Vera Silva took place in Brussel, and all the participants went to UNCCD, the European Commission, and European Environmental Bureau (EEB) to talk about land degradation neutrality and the soil monitoring law!

📣Announcement: registrations are open for the 'Lab Skills Course for Assessing Soil Functions' organized by the Soil Biology! The course will take place between the 1st and the 5th September 2025 in Wageningen🦠🧪🥼. For more information and registration see here: biosisplatform.eu/services/tra...

Interested in the status of soil biodiversity in the Netherlands and beyond? check out the Bodemdierendagen result share last December! (In Dutch)...more info here: bodemdierendagen.nl/nl/debodempa..., @niooknaw.bsky.social

Another edition of the PE&RC PhD Soil Ecology course started! this time with the theme “From global patterns to mechanisms that matter”. The course is organized by our own Gerlinde De Deyn, Wim van der Putten @niooknaw.bsky.social and Franciska de Vries (UvA).

📣Our Luciana Chavez Rodriguez @lucianachr.bsky.social is convening a session (09a) at the Goldschmidt Conference (Prague 6-11 July 2025) : "Microbial ecology and elemental cycling in terrestrial and aquatic systems: integrating biogeochemistry, geomicrobiology and modeling" 🦠🦠 Open for applications!

Naresh Kumar, Assistant Professor at the Soil Chemistry group @soc-wur.bsky.social is one of the recipient of the James Morgan early career award from ACS Environmental Chemistry Division together with Environmental Science &Technology & EST letters journals! More here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

New year, new @soilclusterwur.bsky.social coffee breaks series! Every month an informal moment where soil science cluster colleagues can meet, chat and get to know each other! Looking forward to the next February cofee break!☕☕

Spinach Seed Microbiome Characteristics Linked to Suppressiveness Against Globisporangium ultimum Damping-Off Abstract. Recently we demonstrated that the seed microbiome of certain spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seed lots can confer disease suppression against Globisp

📣New publication led by Makrina Diakaki @femsmicro.bsky.social. About spinach seed microbiome 🦠🌱! "this study highlights the ubiquity of yeasts in spinach seed microbiota and their potential beneficial roles for seed health." academic.oup.com/femsec/advan...

Good morning Bluesky community! The Soil Science cluster community from Wageningen University & Research is moving from X to this social media platform.

Looking forward to start interacting with you on soil!

For more information about the cluster visit our website: www.wur.nl/en/research-...