🌱 Delve deeper into the ecology of soil with "The Ecology of Soil: From communities to ecosystems", a fascinating new book release from our Executive Editor Richard Bardgett!

🪱 Read more: buff.ly/6A4abeW

Check out this #Root methods course organised at Aarhus University in May 2026! Register using the link below.

phd.tech.au.dk/for-phd-stud...

There’s still time to register for the 11th ISRR Dundee Root Medal award workshop 2025: Harnessing plant-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere for plant and ecosystem benefits.

Date: 25 November 2025

Awardee: Prof. Simona Radutoiu

Link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dundee-roo...

The latest ISRR newsletter is available online! Check it out!

www.rootresearch.org/newsletter

Evaluation of combined root exudate and rhizosphere microbiota sampling approaches to elucidate plant-soil-microbe interaction www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10....

Pleased to share our new article in Cell Host & Microbe, a collaboration with the group of Zhong Wei at NJAU

Common mycorrhizal networks facilitate plant disease resistance by altering rhizosphere microbiome assembly

Free share link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lnTD6t8JE...

Rethinking microbial carbon use efficiency in soil models.

Hint consider microbial anatomy and physiology

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

Fungal-mediated soil aggregation as a mechanism for carbon stabilization Abstract. Soils can potentially be turned into net carbon sinks for atmospheric carbon to offset anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Occlusion of soil

Fungal-mediated soil aggregation as a mechanism for carbon stabilization
academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Beautiful review by @stevendegoede.bsky.social

📖 A new review concludes that understanding the functional consequences of biodiversity loss is critical but we need to be clear about what type of biodiversity change we are measuring and to focus on the loss of stably coexisting core species.🌳🌲🌼
👉 buff.ly/kqQghYU

Looks like an after party of Rhizosphere 6 💯🥳 Looking forward to the outcome!

@sciencebestiale.bsky.social 🤩

Beetle grows ‘termite’ on back to steal food Puppet helps insect trick real termites into feeding it

In what may be one of Earth’s craziest forms of mimicry, researchers in 2023 reported a species of rove beetle that grows a termite puppet on its back to fool real termites into feeding it.

Learn more during #InsectWeek: scim.ag/40mj1S8

Peatland VOC flux measurements in the beautiful #StoreMosseNationalPark. Nice collaboration between @yijiao.bsky.social @voltcenter.bsky.social and @unpeatable.bsky.social.

Funding from @villumfonden.bsky.social @dg.dk

Nitrogen deposition decouples grassland plant community from soil bacterial and fungal communities along a precipitation gradient

🦠Research reveals that nitrogen deposition decouples grassland plant community from soil bacterial & fungal communities, posing great challenges for an accurate evaluation of ecosystem functions under future global change scenarios 🧪🌍

A common garden super‐experiment: An impossible dream to inspire possible synthesis We summarize the large body of research on Sonoran Desert winter annuals to demonstrate how experimental designs that employ common gardens to integrate processes across scales hold special promise. ...

Somehow missed this one ... " Huxman et al. An impossible dream to inspire possible synthesis" = how experimental designs that employ common gardens to integrate processes across scales hold special promise 🧪🌐🌾 #traitbasedecology besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Thanks Bert!

Out of interest, is there any recording of this workshop? Would like to dive more into gllvm :-)

Ecology needs a causal overhaul Ecology has yet to embrace causal inference, yet most questions in ecology are causal. Despite the common use of terms that imply causation, such as “shapes”, “drives”, or “impacts”, many studies shy...

I'm guessing this is probably very well worth the read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

BioTIME 2.0: Expanding and Improving a Database of Biodiversity Time Series Motivation Here, we make available a second version of the BioTIME database, which compiles records of abundance estimates for species in sample events of ecological assemblages through time. The up...

🚨New data paper/open data alert!🚨 BioTIME v2.0 is out now! We've expanded the database with improved spatial and taxonomic coverage, with a new R package! As always, free, public, and open acess :)

Paper:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Database:
biotime.st-andrews.ac.uk

This is huge. 🌎

🚨🔔 6-month technician position in plant-soil interactions available in @frantecol.bsky.social ‘s lab at the University of Amsterdam! 🌎🧪

🚨⚠️ Are you looking for a #postdoc? Are you interested in evolutionary #ecology and plant-soil interactions? If yes, consider applying to this fantastic postdoc opportunity in Marina Semchenko's lab at the University of Tartu. Such a great project! #ERC #PlantSoilAdapt 🌍🧪

Multiple targeted grassland restoration interventions enhance ecosystem service multifunctionality - Nature Communications Widespread grassland degradation poses major societal and environmental challenges. Here, the authors propose multiple targeted interventions as a crucial strategy for simultaneously enhancing grassla...

Out now by Liu et al in Nature Communications: 'Multiple targeted grassland restoration interventions enhance ecosystem service multifunctionality' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exploring Priority and Year Effects on Plant Diversity, Productivity and Vertical Root Distribution: First Insights From a Grassland Field Experiment In a field experiment, we tested how priority and year effects influence the aboveground and belowground structure and functioning of dry acidic grasslands. Time since establishment and year of initi...

Alonso-Crespo et al. explore priority and year effects on plant diversity, productivity and vertical root 𖣂 distribution. Read about their insights from a grassland field experiment.🌿
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks Guillaume!

Amazing opportunities for doing a PhD or a postdoc with a root wizard and really great PI. UCLouvain’s rooty team is also fantastic. Very supportive colleagues doing high quality and impactful work. I fully recommend!

Rhizosphere 6 - Rooting for Earth Welcome address and drinks evening of Sunday the 15th June Conference proper starts at 09.00 on Monday 16th and closes at 13.30 on Thursday the 19th of June.

🚨The deadline for Early-bird registration for the Rhizosphere 6 conference in Edinburgh is approaching (30 April)! Do not forget to register soon! #roots #RootingForEarth

www.rhizo6.org

Thanks Vicky!

Seed-borne bacteria drive wheat rhizosphere microbiome assembly via niche partitioning and facilitation Microbial communities play a crucial role in supporting plant health and productivity. Reproducible, natural plant-associated microbiomes can help disentangle microbial dynamics across time and space. Here, using a sequential propagation strategy, we generated a complex and reproducible wheat rhizosphere microbiome (RhizCom) to study successional dynamics and interactions between the soil and heritable seed-borne rhizosphere microbiomes (SbRB) in a microcosm. Using 16S rRNA sequencing and genome-resolved shotgun metagenomics, we find that SbRB surpassed native soil microbes as the dominant rhizosphere-associated microbiome source. SbRB genomes were enriched in host-associated traits including degradation of key saccharide (niche partitioning) and cross-feeding interactions that supported partner strains (niche facilitation). In vitro co-culture experiments confirmed that helper SbRB strains facilitated the growth of partner bacteria on disaccharides as sole carbon source. These results reveal the importance of seed microbiota dynamics in microbial succession and community assembly, which could inform strategies for crop microbiome manipulation.

Outstanding paper from @dgarrs.bsky.social and Christoph Keel  on vertical microbiome transmission in wheat! -> Seed-borne bacteria drive wheat rhizosphere microbiome assembly via niche partitioning and facilitation

I worked in Vicky's group for 8 years (2015-2023) and I really loved it there. The Institute of Ecology of Leuphana is a vibrant community of enthusiastic and supportive researchers and teachers. If you are interested in doing a PhD in plant ecology, I strongly recommend applying. 😀