A good reminder "Data science" isn't Science..."Without models, mathematical or conceptual, data are just noise...science advances only if it can provide explanations...there is an area where petabytes of information can be used...But don't call it science" link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🧪🌐

The end of theory in science? - EMBO Reports

EMBO Reports -

link.springer.com

Fantastic thread by Karl showing some of the things we have been working on with sUnderfoot @idiv-research.bsky.social Including our newly published database paper and concept paper! Check it out I’m excited for what’s left to come!

Karl Andraczek@karlandraczek.bsky.social · last mo.

🌱 1/3: Recap before 2 new #sUnderfoot papers 🔔 last year we proposed six Belowground Persistence Types (BPTs) to predict disturbance responses, led by @jitkaklimesova.bsky.social 💐 @cp-trendsplantsci.bsky.social www.cell.com/trends/plant...

New field experimental study suggests tree diversity and mycorrhizal type are distinct drivers of multitrophic biodiversity, with greater effects belowground. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social

Tree diversity and mycorrhizal type independently shape multitrophic biodiversity, with stronger effects belowground than aboveground - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Tree diversity and mycorrhizal dominance are considered major drivers of multitrophic diversity and ecosystem functioning in forests. Here the authors disentangle the effects of these factors on above...

nature.com

🌱 Root harvest at the Ecotron! Together with Liesje Mommer’s group from Wageningen University & Research (@w-u-r.bsky.social) , we’re harvesting and processing roots to explore belowground plant responses and root functioning. 🔬🌱 #JenaExperiment #RootScience #BelowgroundEcology

🌲These findings highlight the predictive roles of individual traits related to carbon acquisition, water transportation, soil resource capture and tissue investment in growth. 👉️ buff.ly/dpjWDLj

Underground fungal networks come into 3D view without disturbing plant roots www.tum.de/en/news-and-... Read the paper: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PlantScience #fungi

3D Imaging Reveals Underground Plant–Fungal Networks

A new TUM method reveals how plant roots and mycorrhizal fungi interact in soil, offering insights for climate-resilient and drought-tolerant crops.

tum.de

Cool new study, surprising findings! 'Increased #nutrient #diversity can induce loss of #microbial diversity through enhanced resource uptake' @natecoevo.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Increased nutrient diversity can induce loss of microbial diversity through enhanced resource uptake - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Increasing nutrient diversity is expected to promote microbial diversity. This study shows that more complex environments can enhance resource uptake, intensify competition and lead to microbial biodi...

nature.com

Today is the last day to apply to our open PhD position working on plant-associated above-belowground fungal microbiomes across the Galapagos! Based at the amazing @niooknaw.bsky.social 🌱🍄

PhD: Biogeography of plant-associated fungi on the Galapagos islands

In this project, you will investigate the biogeography of above- and belowground fungi associated with several Scalesia species. We aim to develop an integrated view of diversity and distribution of t...

nioo.knaw.nl

Probably one of the coolest presentation setups I've seen in a long time.

Ondrej Mottl 🌿💻📈🌍⏳@ondrejmottl.bsky.social · 3mo ago

For those who missed my talk at #IAVS2026. Here it is all online: 🔗https://ondrejmottl.github.io/BIODYNAMICS-vegetation-cooccurrence/Documentation/Website/outputs.html Rendered slides: 🖼️https://ondrejmottl.github.io/BIODYNAMICS-vegetation-cooccurrence/Documentation/Presentations/IAVS_2026/_output

#Wiesen und #Weiden gelten oft als unspektakulär – dabei sind sie zentrale Lebensräume für Artenvielfalt und Klimaschutz. Im Interview mit Christian Schwägerl erklärt der Botaniker Thomas Borsch, warum Graslandschaften mehr Aufmerksamkeit verdienen:

Tour de Graslandschaften: Eine Recherchereise mit dem Fahrrad

Weiden, Steppenrelikte, Trockenrasen, Feuchtwiesen – was sie bedroht und wie sie zu neuem Leben erweckt werden können

riffreporter.de

🌱Do leaves and roots follow the same strategy? New research led by Yuzhi Zhu in Ecology Letters shows that leaf and fine root traits in subtropical forest plants are largely decoupled, with independent above- and below-ground resource strategies. 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Non‐Correlated Variation of Leaf and Fine Root Traits in Subtropical Forest Plants

Using coupled above- and below-ground trait sampling on individuals of co-existing species, we quantified relationships between 18 leaf and fine root traits in two environmentally contrasting subtrop...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

An exciting day today. Our work, co-led by @mhanusch.bsky.social and @thomasdussarrat.bsky.social was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. In this review, we explore the concept of chemodiversity and what role it could play for ecological functions at landscape-level. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Ecological role of emergent properties in the chemodiversity landscape - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Many biotic interactions occur via chemical compounds released in the environment. Here the authors review the field of chemical ecology and discuss the importance of investigating landscape-scale che...

doi.org

Still standing: persistence traits capture belowground plant functions beyond resource exploration and acquisition https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.06.723249v1

One of the most important nature sites at the Adriatic coasts is at immediate risk. Apparently Albanian authorities gave permission to destroy this paradise. @martakos.ec.europa.eu citizens.al/en/2026/05/1...

"Zvërnec Trust", constructions up to 8 floors in the protected area - Citizens.al

Even though two weeks have passed since the first denunciation by environmentalists of the intervention with heavy machinery in the Pishë–Poro–Nartë protected area, institutions continue to offer trun...

citizens.al

Really useful paper explaining why richness/diversity metrics are rarely informative when applied to microbial community sequencing data: enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Rethinking Alpha Diversity in Marker‐Gene Microbiome Studies: Dominance Matters More Than Richness

Marker-gene microbiome surveys systematically under-sample rare taxa, causing alpha diversity metrics to reflect dominance rather than true richness. This conceptual mismatch can lead to misleading e...

enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Paper published, led by Forest Isbell. We developed a new theoretical framework to predict how temporal stability and resilience emerge from the combined effects of resistance and recovery. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Predicting temporal stability and resilience from resistance and recovery - Nature

New predictions for how temporal stability and resilience depend on their resistance and recovery components are explored.

nature.com

Friday (📅 April 24), I’ll be talking about temporal stability in ecological communities and how to study its drivers using community time series. 🌐🌍📏 #Rstats #Ecology #EcoInformatics #TimeSeries 💻 Online seminar · 👉 Register here 👇👇👇 🔗 iavs-org.github.io/ecoinformati...

Ecoinformatics IAVS@iavs-ecoinfo.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Want to learn more about ecological stability with a hands-on approach? Join us in the next cycle of free webinars! On April 24, Jules Segrestin will talk about drivers of stability in time series. Register at us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... and consider becoming an IAVS member!

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

🌳 New paper out! Congrats to our PhD researcher Analena Lenk 🎉 Drought, ash dieback & missing floods are reshaping floodplain forests in Leipzig. The study shows how targeted understorey thinning can support diverse regeneration. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ForestEcology #ClimateChange

Regeneration dynamics in response to an openness gradient caused by ash dieback, drought effects and understorey forest management in a meliorated European floodplain forest

Pathogens and droughts lead to increasingly thinned forests worldwide, shaping regeneration conditions. In Leipzig (Germany), we investigated the curr…

sciencedirect.com

Naturschutz auch für Mikroorganismen! Eine Begründung findet Ihr in einem kurzen Editorial von @ninafarwig.bsky.social und mir in @claudialudy.bsky.social: rdcu.be/fcyBT

Biodiversity Insurance of Forest Productivity Has Strengthened Under Recent Climate Change 🔗 buff.ly/KP872bb

Acquisitive root exploration strategies help maintain higher peak sap flux rates during summer drought, but more root biomass does not Tran et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Even evenness is important: the direct and mediating effects of species abundances for ecosystem services nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #Commentary by Iris Hordijk highlighting the recent work by Zhou et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/SYWZIF... @iris-hordijk.bsky.social

We present TaxonMatch, a tool designed to align taxonomic names, resolve synonymy, and correct typographical and structural inconsistencies across species name databases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #biodiversity #taxonomy #bioinformatics

Dream Job Alert! @unituebingen.bsky.social is hiring a FULL PROFESSOR (W3) for EXPERIMENTAL BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH! You work on soil fauna/fungi/food webs and their relations with environment, plants, ecosystem processes? Come and join the @terra-cluster.org and our institute! Please re-post!

Integrating root exudation into belowground carbon economics #plantscience

Integrating root exudation into belowground carbon economics

The ecological significance of root exudation has long been recognized, yet most research on root-trait organization has focused on easily measurable morphological and chemical traits. Root exudation, despite representing a substantial carbon investment in rhizosphere processes and belowground interactions, remains largely overlooked in the current Root Economics Space (RES) framework. Emerging evidence reveals inconsistent correlations between root-exudation traits and the collaboration versus conservation gradients of the RES. We explore potential mechanisms underlying these inconsistencies and propose two testable hypotheses: that root exudation can either be integrated into the existing two-dimensional RES or constitute an independent axis that extends the framework to three dimensions. Finally, we identify key research priorities to address critical knowledge gaps and improve trait-based predictions of belowground carbon allocation.

dlvr.it

📰Published📰Fungal partnerships and forest futures: how soil microbes shape tree seedling survival🌱 buff.ly/fcf9W3W 🧪🌍️

Fungal partnerships and forest futures: how soil microbes shape tree seedling survival

Sarah McCarthy-Neumann, Katherine E. A. Wood, Inés Ibáñez, Richard K. Kobe This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Forests are full of hid…

fesummaries.wordpress.com

I am helping coordinate one of these sessions on biodiversity and microclimate, please submit abstracts and join us! Our new review paper on this subject is out today: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

CBC Conference@cbc-conference.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🌎 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲!!! #CBC2026Leipzig #Biodiversity #ClimateScience #BehaviouralScience @unileipzig.bsky.social @ufz.de @idiv-research.bsky.social

🔎 Plant diversity increases microbial resistance to drought and soil carbon accumulation🌱 These results highlight that higher plant diversity can enhance microbial growth resistance to drought and C accumulation of both microbial and plant origin 🦠 🪴 📖 buff.ly/WqWLXIz