We are launching a call to find an artist who works, or has always wanted to work, with soil biodiversity 🪱 🦠 🍄 to co-create a project in collaboration with researchers from WUR and the support of Platform DIS (platformdis.nl) Please share👍 Questions? contact me @ giulia.bongiorno@wur.nl

📢With Thom Kuyper:🍫 Panama’s cacao is more diverse than previously documented. Distinct regional genetic profiles, unique Criollo ancestry, and links to soil conditions highlight opportunities for conservation and industry development. 🌱https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10722-026-02844-2

📢Paper out with our own Thom Kuyper🌳European forests show declining nutrient health, and emerging evidence suggests shifting ectomycorrhizal fungi dynamics may be a key, overlooked driver of how forests respond to global environmental change.🌳 academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Impacts of ectomycorrhizal forest change on nutrient cycling, forest resilience, and ecosystem services

Abstract. At a time when we count on northern hemisphere forests to mitigate global atmospheric change, European forests are showing deteriorating abovegro

academic.oup.com

🎉🪱✨🌱New WILDCARD biodiversity initiative granted to Dr. Giulia Bongiorno and team: Exploring new ways of connecting people with soil biodiversity. Not just through science, but through experiences! ✨Stay tuned ! For more info: wageningenur4.sharepoint.com/:u:/r/sites/...

🚀 New review “Integrating soil imaging with spatial omics to uncover root–soil interactions” now published in Plant Communications lnkd.in/ebG3bbJu. 🌱 Contribution by our own Alix Vidal and brilliantly led by Tino Colombi, together with Hannah Cooper and Rahul A Bhosale. 📖 Enjoy the read 😊

New publication led by Dr. Anna Visscher: "Early soil health responses to crop diversification and manure application vary across tropical agroecological zones" Highlights: Focus is Kenya, where 4 long-term experiments were recently redesigned into diversified systems! 📄 article lnkd.in/exwxmwsv

📣Interested in regenerative agriculture, soil nematodes, and data science? Then this is the PhD position for you! Be part of ReGeNL, a large-scale project helping the NL transition to reg. agr. The position is co-hosted by Antonie in Giesbeek & our group! For more info read below 🪱🥼🔬👨‍💻🌾🍀

📣Our special professor Ciska Veen organizes a discussion at European Congress for Conservation Biology (ECCB) (Leiden, 10 July '26; 3 pm) on 'Making soil biodiversity a priority for conservation in policy and practise'🦠🪱 Info: eccb26leiden.eu Interested in pitching your idea? contact her!

⏳ Only a bit more than two weeks left to register for our earthworm conference ISEE13🪱🪱🪱🪱 in Wageningen (23–28 August)! lnkd.in/eJ4PZ33N 🪱 Join our global community of earthworm researchers 🤝 Reconnect with colleagues and meet new collaborators ⭐ Hear from our invited speakers and many others 🤩

📢Our very own Thom Kuyper is co‑author on a new study diving into the interactions between Cannabis sativa 🌿 and beneficial fungi 🍄. Discover it there ▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌱 The new Dutch Biodiversity Status Report dropped! Shout‑out to our own Thom Kuyper for his contribution on beachgrass & fungi, and their role in protecting dunes (p. 67). 🔗 Dive into the full report: www.naturalis.nl/en/over-ons/...

📢 Thrilled to share that our new paper is out! 🔗 lnkd.in/eiYnv6R7 🪱 Exploring earthworms + phosphorus using the ¹⁸O‑phosphate method 👏 Kudos to Chiara Pistocchi & Andreas Burr for leading the work. 🏆 Special congratulations to Andreas Burr, whose MSc contribution earned him a Best Thesis award.

📢Our latest paper, with contributions from Thom Kuyper and Mirjam Pulleman, uncovers how political drivers and persistent social‑ecological lock‑ins shape the future of forest transitions in Latin America 🌳. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Understanding forest transitions and lock-ins in Latin American agro-forest frontiers: aligning theory to practice for accelerating restoration

The agro-forest frontier is the dynamic border between agricultural and forested lands. Drawing on results from an interdisciplinary research programm…

sciencedirect.com

📣Delighted to be sharing this new paper by Roelof Zwaan & other SBL colleagues. In this paper they evaluated different approaches for calculating single indices of soil health and show that the final numbers are often in disagreement for the same site! Here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Soil Health Indices in Disagreement: A Systematic Review and Comparison of Soil Health Assessment Methods

Soil health is commonly understood as the ability of soils to provide multiple ecosystem services such as primary production, climate mitigation, and …

sciencedirect.com

🎉Join our short course at EGU26. We will offer a unique opportunity for participants to come together and exchange tools, insights, and experiences related to geoscience education for children.📖🥼 📍EGU26, Vienna ⏲️6. May 2026, 14:00-15:45 CET, Room -2.82 Session link: lnkd.in/dmsZsqRX

Happy to have Jan Willem van Groenigen as our new chair! @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social

Jan Willem van Groenigen@jwvangroenigen.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I'm very excited to have been appointed head of the Soil Biology Group (@sbl-wur.bsky.social) at Wageningen University! Looking forward to lead this excellent, inclusive and diverse group, which is as ambitious in research as it is in teaching! @soilclusterwur.bsky.social www.wur.nl/en/news/jan-...

📣Last chance today for the Early bird registration of the International Symposium on Earthworm Ecology: event.wur.nl/isee13/home-2 🪱🪱 Ensure your early bird spot!

🌱 How does plant diversity shape soil life? Omotola, PhD candidate in SBL, has just published new findings on multispecies swards and nematode dynamics. 🔍 A great read for anyone interested in soil ecology and sustainable agriculture. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Multispecies swards support lower plant-parasitic nematode abundance in agricultural grasslands

Reducing reliance on mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizer is central to improving the sustainability of agricultural grassland management. Increasing sward…

sciencedirect.com

✨After 5 years and many activities, the project Clima-LoCa, coordinated by Mirjam Pulleman, and focusing on Cd mitigation in cacao systems has officially ended🍫 However, it will continue to share its adventures and products through climaloca.org and linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/clim...

🎉Congratulations to our doctor Gidena Reda, graduated yesterday with the thesis: "Utilising diagnostic features to define the safe operating space for nutrient management in smallholder farming systems"🌱 contributing to smallholder farming systems in Ethiopia!🌍 research.wur.nl/en/publicati...

📢New paper led by our own Marie Zwetsloot. 🌱Weeds aren’t just pests - they can act as climate‑smart service plants that support water and climate regulation in agroecosystems, as long as farmers prevent competition. ▶️https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.70181

Weeds in a changing climate: Competitors or service plants?

Reducing herbicide use and preparing agroecosystems for climate change are two top priorities on the global policy agenda. Here, we explore whether these two challenges can be tackled simultaneously....

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📣 The special issue of the Wageningen Soil Conference 2023 on “Soil Solutions for a Sustainable World” 🌱 was recently finalized with contributions from the four soil cluster departments (SBL, SGL, SOC and SLM) You can find it here: bsssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Editorial for Special Issue on “Soil Solutions for a Sustainable World”

Click on the article title to read more.

bsssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📣 The annual meetings of 2 important EU soil outreach projects just took place🎉: Loes Van Schaik (SLM)&Giulia Bongiorno (SBL) for SoilTribes in Portugal soiltribes.eu, while Wietse Wiersma&Ingrid Lubbers (SGL) for CURIOSOIL in Slovenia curiosoil.eu Raising soil awareness is one of our mission🌱!

📣✨Don't miss the Exposition from the Uitwaaien magazine ‘Art meets Science’ In De Cultuurwerkplaats Wageningen ... 🪱🦠🐛It is on until the end of March and featuring a beautiful artistic collaboration on soil from the Soil biology group and Trijnie Goudriaan! www.instagram.com/reel/DVRq_Rm...

🎓 Last week our Tullia Calogiuri (working at the interface between soil chemistry & biology) defended her PhD thesis "The role of earthworms in enhanced mineral weathering - understanding their impact on carbon dynamics and sustainable fertilisation". 🪱🪨 ✨Thesis: research.wur.nl/en/publicati...

📢 New paper out in Geoderma with many SBL and SOC colleagues! “Glued forever: incomplete dispersion hampers POM–MAOM fractionation in soils with high SOC and metal (hydr)oxide content.” ▶️https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706126000327

Glued forever: incomplete dispersion hampers POM-MAOM fractionation in soils with high SOC and metal (hydr)oxide content

Fractionation of soil organic carbon (SOC) into particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) has contributed to our u…

sciencedirect.com

📣Publication alert📃 "Temperature Response of Soil Organic Matter Decomposition Rates: Construction and Applications of a Temperature Gradient Block" led by our PhD student Karen Moran Rivera, shows a practical way to study how sensitive to climate is soil carbon!🌡️ app.jove.com/t/69785/temp...

📃📣Publication alert! A great collaborative effort merging science&practice on temperate food forests🌳🍎🪱 👉"A scoping review of temperate food forestry research: key themes, methodological considerations and research priorities" - featuring our own Giulia Bongiorno link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A scoping review of temperate food forestry research: key themes, methodological considerations and research priorities - Agroforestry Systems

There is increasing interest in practice and policy in the use of polycultures composed of a tree layer integrated with multiple other perennial vegetation layers (“food forests”) in temperate regions...

link.springer.com

📄 New publication alert A timely and insightful paper on biostimulants and their regulation has just been released — featuring contributions from our own Thom Kuyper 🔗 Check it out. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

📣🎉New PhD-position in our group together with CIAT and WUR Business Economics! "Resilience of food systems; learning from Lighthouse Farm Communities in Colombia and four other countries" Here the link with more information: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

PhD: Food System Resilience in Colombia: learn from Lighthouse Farm Communities

PhD position - Resilience of food systems; learning from Lighthouse Farm Communities in Colombia and four other countries. In this PhD project, you will explore how Lighthouse Farm Communities build...

wur.nl