I am in Berlin, but not at that meeting, since this is my teaching block here. 🫠

Sadly, no. 😅

I think this is a challenging exercise.

Maybe just on paper, but maybe there are also use-cases where this sort of thinking could be put into practice (like high-emission point sources).

AI has supercharged scientists—but may have shrunk science Analysis of 41 million papers finds that although AI expands individual impact, it narrows collective scientific exploration

Reading in journal club

AI has supercharged scientists—but may have shrunk science

based on this Nature paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.science.org/content/arti...

Synthetic ecosystems? Thoughts on synthetic biology

If we wanted to put together an artificial ecosystem to maximize one function (let’s say carbon storage), how would we do it?

I think this is interesting to think about…

open.substack.com/pub/matthias...

Commentary in Nature Medicine:

Closing the gap on antifungal resistance

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

Congratulations to Peter Meidl for successfully defending his PhD thesis today!!

Thanks to the committee and to everyone who came to the event online and in the lecture hall.

@fubcp.bsky.social

Diversity of Pharmaceuticals Enhances Antibiotic Resistance in the Invertebrate Gut via Biofilm‐Mediated Mechanisms Pharmaceutical diversity acts as an independent driver of antibiotic resistance in soil invertebrates. While bulk soil remains unaffected, the collembolan gut microbiome exhibits significant resistan...

Just online:

Diversity of pharmaceuticals enhances antibiotic resistance in the invertebrate gut via biofilm-mediated mechanisms

Another cool paper in a series of collaborative projects with Dong Zhu and Yong-Guan Zhu at CAS

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Was just there last year....

Oh I think I know exactly what you're saying. There is definitely some element of being attracted to these shiny new ideas, especially when other work needs to be done. 😅
I think group leaders are not immune to that at all, speaking just for myself.

How does this work in your head or in your lab group?

Curious what others think about this balance of idea generation vs execution on established topics.

Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems A long-standing hypothesis of microbial ecology is that simple patterns might persist despite community complexity or even emerge because of it. However, the concept of “emergent simplicity” remains partly intuitive. Here, we defined emergent ...

Moran et al. in Science
Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Pretty little walk through the Berlin Botanical Garden.

Metz et al. in Nature (w/ Nico Blüthgen)

Biodiversity resilience in a tropical rainforest

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

Final version out:
Critical thresholds in soil physical properties driven by microplastics | Microplastics and Nanoplastics

We find quite low thresholds for microplastic effects on soil physical properties, using a published dataset

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Striking the balance between discovery of new questions and working on known problems At least in the environmental sciences this is an important question - what is your answer?

How to strike the balance between developing new ideas and working on established problems?

What is your answer?

matthiasrillig.substack.com/p/striking-t...

That's a good way of putting it, yes! :)

Paper just accepted:

Disentangling litter decomposition trajectories in streams: ecological insights from a global multi-model analysis

Will share details once available

Paper just accepted:

Global negative effects of fire on soil fauna communities vary with geographic factors and taxonomic groups

Will share details once available

Paper just accepted:

Host-mediated interactions between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and saprotrophs drive soil organic carbon dynamics

Will share details once available

Yep, that is why it's a problem.... :)

Pseudoreplication in ecological research, and how to avoid it Let's eradicate pseudoreplication - a rant! :)

Still one of my most-viewed posts: pseudoreplication in ecology and how to avoid it....

open.substack.com/pub/matthias...

A new experiment with several hundred units is being set up this week, exploring effects of a new factor of global change on soil processes.

Can't wait to see the first results...always exciting.

AHL-mediated quorum sensing drives plastisphere formation and elevates pathogenic potential Abstract. The biofilm colonizing plastic debris, termed ‘the plastisphere’, is of growing global concern due to escalating plastic pollution. However, the

Paper just out in ISME J

Wang et al.
AHL-mediated quorum sensing drives plastisphere formation and elevates pathogenic potential

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

How sustainable agricultural management practices mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in paddy fields Agriculture is a major emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), requiring mitigation through optimized sustainable practices. Although sustainable managemen…

Just out:

Wang et al.
How sustainable agricultural management practices mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in paddy fields

w/ Stavros Veresoglou and @joseppenuelas.bsky.social

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

Well, by definition they all go back to human activity.

Of course, the root causes are extremely well known for basically any factor of global change.

Paper just accepted:

How sustainable agricultural management practices mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in paddy fields

Will share full details once available.

Beautiful!

More self-reflection in research can lead to better science A package of papers looking at the social and behavioural sciences shows the value of researchers collaborating to further the cause of reproducible, replicable and robust findings.

Interesting:

More self-reflection in research can lead to better science www.nature.com/articles/d41...