Elsa Abs

New paper out in @natecoevo.nature.com showing that growth rate is as a stronger predictor of SOC than CUE. Congrats Xianjin He for leading this work!

Excited to convene the upcoming EGU webinar on "Mental Health in Academia: Obstacles, Advocacy and Inclusion" on 9 February at 16:00 CET.

Open to all.
👉 Register here: www.egu.eu/webinars/694...

@egu.eu @egubg.bsky.social @anabastos.bsky.social @elsa-abs.bsky.social

Last few hours to submit an abstract to our session on eco-evolutionary drivers of biogeochemistry #EGU26

⏰ Abstract deadline: January 15 at 13:00 CET
🔗 Session link: lnkd.in/eHV6jDrh

Co-conveners: @manzonilab.bsky.social , @bopplaurent.bsky.social, Colin Prentice, Elisa Bruni

If you work on how diversity and/or adaptation shape ecosystem functioning—in soils, vegetation, or aquatic systems—consider our session 😃 #EGU26

⏰ Deadline: Jan 15
🔗 Session link: lnkd.in/eHV6jDrh

Co-conveners: @manzonilab.bsky.social, @bopplaurent.bsky.social, Colin Prentice, Elisa Bruni

Happy New Year! 🎉

Just a quick reminder about our EGU26 session on eco-evolutionary drivers of biogeochemistry — we’d love to see your abstracts!

⏰ Deadline: Jan 15

Co-organizers: Elisa Bruni, @manzonilab.bsky.social, @bopplaurent.bsky.social, Colin Prentice

Session co-organizers: Elisa Bruni, @manzonilab.bsky.social, @bopplaurent.bsky.social, Colin Prentice

📣 EGU26 – Call for abstracts

Session: Functional diversity in motion: Eco-evolutionary drivers of biogeochemical processes across terrestrial & aquatic systems.

🎤 Solicited speakers: Jaideep Joshi & Boris Sauterey
🗓 Deadline: 15 Jan 2026
🔗 meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/sessio...

Starting in 5min!

How do scientific ideas evolve and which paradigms in Earth system science deserve a fresh look? We welcome submissions to address these questions in our #EGU26 session “Re-examining Seminal Ideas in Earth System Science” www.egu26.eu/session/57516

@anabastos.bsky.social @rebeccamayvarney.bsky.social @egu.eu @egubg.bsky.social

Excited to convene an EGU webinar on "Fostering Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in Academia" on 10 Dec at 16:30 CET.

Davide Faranda will share insights on building a more inclusive and equitable research culture across the geosciences.

Open to all.
👉 Register: www.egu.eu/webinars/

🎉 I'm thrilled to share that I've started a permanent research position as Chargée de Recherche (CR) at the CNRS!
@cnrs-insu.bsky.social

I'm super thankful to all my amazing colleagues and friends who gave feedback and encouragement during the application process 💚

Congratulations Kyle!!! (love the soil mates 🤣🥰)

Thank you for sharing Brian!

Link to submit your abstract: lnkd.in/gkDzqqaX

Wondering where to submit your abstract for #AGU25 @agu.org?

Check out our session co-organized with @kristenobacter.bsky.social (UMass), Ulas Karaoz and Nicola Falco (Berkeley Lab).

In-person invited speakers: @andreasrichter.bsky.social (U of Vienna) & Amilcare Porporato (Princeton) 🤩

I'd love that! I'm based in Paris. Would that work for you?

Working on microscale microbial functions and/or scaling up?

Submit to our Elementa special feature!

🔗 lnkd.in/gChyjaiM
📝 Rolling publication
📅 Final deadline: Sept 20, 2025
🌍 Contributions welcome from soil, ocean & human systems.

🙏 co-authors: @scott-saleska.bsky.social , Steve Allison, Philippe Ciais, @chopinyang.bsky.social , Mike Weintraub and Régis Ferrière.

6. Conclusion

Microbial eco-evolution could destabilize soil carbon.
Models that ignore it risk underestimating climate-carbon feedbacks.
We hope this work opens the door to more theory-driven, evolution-aware Earth system models. (7/7)

5. Global heterogeneity of the eco-evolutionary effect

We wondered if we could replace eco-evolution with a constant correction. Answer: no. Its effect is uneven—negligible in warm regions, but up to 2× more soil C loss in cold ones. Why? Optimal enzyme allocation responds nonlinearly. (6/7)

4. Implication for global soil C projections

We thought that microbial adaptation would buffer warming-induced soil C loss. But because it amplifies enzyme production (as shown above), we found that adaptation aggravates the loss—by x1.8 globally. (5/7)

3. Experimental validation

We reviewed 13 warming studies:
✅ 9 matched our predictions (6 eco-evolution, 3 physio)
❌ 3 didn’t show increased enzyme production (though evidence was weaker).
Overall, warming tends to increase microbial investment in resource acquisition. (4/7)

2. Evolutionary result

We found that in hostile environments (e.g. high mortality, slow uptake), selection favors direct investment in biomass over the riskier strategy of enzyme production. Since warming mainly increases uptake rate, we predicted it would favor stronger enzyme producers. (3/7)

1. The eco-evolutionary model

We added a trade-off to a classic microbe-soil C model and used adaptive dynamics to evolve enzyme allocation. To prevent freeloaders from taking over, we included implicit spatial structure. Bonus: enzyme production emerges—it’s no longer a free parameter. (2/7)

New paper out in Global Change Biology 🤩

doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

We built the first soil carbon model that includes microbial eco-evolution using game theory — and found that adaptation could nearly double global soil carbon loss by 2100. Here is how👇(1/7)

🙏 co-authors: @scott-saleska.bsky.social, Steve Allison, Philippe Ciais, @chopinyang.bsky.social, Mike Weintraub and Régis Ferrière.

6. Conclusion

Microbial eco-evolution could destabilize soil carbon.
Models that ignore it risk underestimating climate-carbon feedbacks.
We hope this work opens the door to more theory-driven, evolution-aware Earth system models. (7/7)

5. Global heterogeneity of the eco-evolutionary effect

We wondered if we could replace eco-evolution with a constant correction. Answer: no. Its effect is uneven—negligible in warm regions, but up to 2× more soil C loss in cold ones. Why? Optimal enzyme allocation responds nonlinearly. (6/7)

4. Implication for global soil C projections

We thought that microbial adaptation would buffer warming-induced soil C loss. But because it amplifies enzyme production (as shown above), we found that adaptation aggravates the loss—by x1.8 globally. (5/7)