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...

This is a massive field of research, and there is no shortage in terms of understanding in a general sense.

Global environmental change: how do we bring it to the people? Do we need new metaphors and narratives, or visualizations...

Global environmental change: how do we bring it to the people?

Do we need new metaphors, narratives, visualizations?

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

Very interesting!

Critical thresholds in soil physical properties driven by microplastics - Microplastics and Nanoplastics Microplastics and Nanoplastics - Growing evidence suggests that many ecological systems exhibit tipping points, thresholds at which small changes in stressors can trigger critical shifts in...

Article just online:

Critical thresholds in soil physical properties driven by microplastics

Headed by PhD student Tamara Meizoso-Regueira w/ Yingxue Yu, Markus Flury.

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

Very happy to have @cmarin.bsky.social give a talk in our lab meeting on multi-level selection.
Great talk and interesting discussion.

Global patterns and drivers of soil microbial nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency - Nature Communications Soil microbes recycle nutrients, but their global nutrient use efficiency is poorly understood. This study finds microbial nitrogen-use efficiency is nearly twice phosphorus-use efficiency, driven by ...

Paper just out in Nature Communications:

Global patterns and drivers of soil microbial nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency

Led by Yongxing Cui, with many co-authors including @joseppenuelas.bsky.social @manudelbaq.bsky.social & others.

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

Do-it-yourself in research or farming things out? Some musings...

Do-it-yourself in labs or farming things out?

Should we do as much as possible in our labs or send samples to companies for analysis? What do you think….

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

Can there be a recipe for how to most effectively get to the interesting questions at the interfaces between fields of science?

Multiple global change factors diminish the benefits of AMF diversity to ecosystem multifunctionality This findings suggested that the simultaneous occurrence of multiple GCFs diminished the benefits of high AMF diversity on ecosystem multifunctionality. However, high AMF diversity consistently impro...

Reading in journal club

Jiang et al
Multiple global change factors diminish the benefits of AMF diversity to ecosystem multifunctionality

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thanks! I think that's pretty cool....

Happy International Day of Happiness!

How to work with researchers from different fields? Is there a recipe?

How can we most effectively work with researchers from other fields in terms of identifying where the interesting questions at the interface are?

Any thoughts? Any resources you know about?

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

Looking forward to giving a plenary lecture at the VAAM 2026 conference (my talk is on Sunday)

It's on my favorite topic....

@vaam-microbes.bsky.social

Final version published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment:

Constraining the effect of global change on antifungal resistance

@natrevearthenviron.nature.com @changchao-li.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Reading in journal club

Maillard et al.

Mycelial biomass growth stage at death determines fungal necromass decay dynamics

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

Paper just accepted:

Critical thresholds in soil physical properties driven by microplastics

Will share details and link to open-access paper once available

Including the creative side of research in basic courses in the environmental sciences How can we do it? and should we?

How can we include the creative side of research in basic courses in ecology/ environmental sciences?

How have you done it?

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