🎓✨ Franziska Steiner defended her PhD on Monday and absolutely nailed it! 🥳 How drought shapes root traits, soil microbes & feedbacks on soil structure / maize 🌾 🔽 🔗 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... link.springer.com/article/10.1... All the best for your postdoc adventure in France 🍀

⏰ Final call for abstracts! Only 1 day left to submit your contribution. Don’t miss your chance to be part of the program 🪱

📢 Calling all earthworm enthusiasts! 🪱✨ One week to submit your abstract for the Earthworm Symposium happening 23–28 August 2026/Wageningen. 🗓️ Deadline: 31 January You love the 😍 earthworm photography by @frankashwood.bsky.social? Then come 🤩! More info and abstract submission: lnkd.in/ehGwc3ze

🪱 📢 Great news! The abstract submission deadline for ISEE13 has been extended - now January 31st, 2026. You can enjoy relaxed holidays 🎄✨ and return in the new year with fresh energy and even more enthusiasm for earthworms 🪱. We look forward to your contributions! event.wur.nl/isee13/home-...

📢 PhD Opportunity: Plant–Soil Interactions 🌱 Can diversity deliver climate-smart grasslands? 🪱DeepRootLab | roots & earthworms 📍 Copenhagen | 📅 Apply by 8 Feb 2026 🔗 More info & apply: jobportal.ku.dk/phd/?show=15... Supervision: Frederik van der Bom, Dorte Bodin Dresbøll & @alixvidal.bsky.social

🪱 Hey, earthworm enthusiasts! Registration is OPEN for the 13th International Symposium on Earthworm Ecology 😎 📌 Deadlines: Abstracts: Jan 4, 2026 Early-bird: Apr 15, 2026 🌍 Details on excursions, workshops & socials: event.wur.nl/isee13/home-... 📅 See you end of August 2026!

🪱🐜 🐛 🪳 🐌 Join our SOIL FAUNA session at EGU2026! Excited to team up with Dmytro Monoshyn, Marion Mittmannsgruber & Gerrit Angst. Looking forward to catching up, or getting to know you and your work! 🪱🐜 🐛 🪳 🐌

Three days of fieldwork for ReGeNL with a fantastic team: Lyanne, Anne, Yana & Felix! Fieldwork is a rare treat these days, definitely worth celebrating 😛 Lots of curious animals 🐄🐖🐓🐕 and plenty of earthworm pits 🪱😅. Loved sampling such diverse farms!

📢 Our book chapter "Macrofauna as indicators of soil health: earthworms & enchytraeids" is out with Burleigh Dodds! 🪱 🔗 www.bdspublishing.com/open-access/ 📩 DM me for full chapter. Print edition coming end of year! Thanks to a great team @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social @tulca.bsky.social and more 🙌!

😊🙏 Just back from a week in Normandy for our Grounding Carbon Farming course 🐄 Lectures, farm visits, Calvados tasting 😄, fieldwork, games, interviews & great food, in a stunning landscape 🤩 With Gabriel Moinet, Ina Moller, Federico Andreotti, Claire Chenu, Roman Huppi Emma Verweij for the pics 📸

•📢 🪱 🎉Abstract submissions are now OPEN for the upcoming 13th International Symposium on Earthworm Ecology (ISEE13) — hosted in Wageningen, from August 23–28, 2026! ➡️https://event.wur.nl/isee13/author •🔗🪱🌍 Discover the speaker lineup and our initial program: ➡️ event.wur.nl/isee13/new-p...

Doing my last edits on my keynote for today - bringing some #soilscience into the physics realm #SIMSEurope #SoilBiogeochemistry #NanoSIMS @alixvidal.bsky.social @tuberlin.bsky.social @ucph.bsky.social

🎓 Very proud of Enno Sonntag ✨🥳 for successfully defending his PhD last week about Earthworm Farming 🪱 for Circular Food Systems 🔁. A truly original and multidisciplinary topic. 📄 Curious about his work? lnkd.in/eGPMPN-Q lnkd.in/e5Vknkif 📸 Luc Vietanh Soto Well done, Enno! 🥳

🤩✨Feeling incredibly lucky to be part of such a vibrant, creative team — and a very proud supervisor of @tulca.bsky.social 🪱, alongside @mhagens.bsky.social & @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social 💫. We will make very good use of this new chair 😆!

Curious about the state of biodiversity in the Netherlands? 🌿 The latest report has all the insights ▶️ www.naturalis.nl/system/files... (in Dutch). Our very own Thom Kuyper co-authored the section on fungi—who else but the 'mushroom man' himself? 🍄😊

📣The Soil Cluster is participating to the Biodiversity challenge organized by WUR to share its enthusiasm about soil biodiversity 🪱🦠🌱 Where: Wageningen market square When: Saturday 24th April from 9 am till 15! For more information check: www.wur.nl/en/research-...

Worm charming challenge in Wageningen @sbl-wur.bsky.social the funniest event of the year. We went dressed as Belgian Badgers 🦡 and played didgeridoo to get the worms out. Enjoyed it very very much @fornalab.bsky.social and ANEKO regenwormenwerkgroep. Next month we organize it @nerdland.be

🪱Another delightful round of Earthworm Charming 🪱✨ this year! Despite the dry conditions (only 10 worms for the winning Louis Bolk team 😬), the creativity, costumes, and community spirit were amazing 🤩💡👗. Always a magical mix of people and ideas ✨! Big thanks to all the earthworm enthusiasts!🙏

An exciting day - we have teamed up again with the amazing Wim van Egmond to make one of his fantastic time lapse movies! What will it be about? Enchytraeids, fungi, collembola or perhaps even tardigrades?!?! Stay tuned!!! @soilclusterwur.bsky.social

It’s time to collect your #EGU25 badge 🙌! Here is what you will need: ✅ Identification card/passport ✅ QR code from Copernicus for a valid on-site registration (get it here: www.egu.eu/4QFEKH/) ❓ For any further help, please reach out to: [email protected]

#Train2EGU from Wageningen 🇳🇱 to Vienna 🇦🇹 @egu.eu. Let's see if I am lucky with connections 😬🙏🏻

👋 Heading to #EGU25 tomorrow! Excited to catch up with many of you. Will be talking about earthworms🪱, roots, AMF and how they shape soil phosphorus and carbon cycling🌱!

What's the best way to deliver a successful #Poster and #PICO presentation🤔? In this #GeoLog Tullia Calogiuri and Steve Kwatcho Kengdo #2022OSPPWinners share their top tips for giving an Outstanding Student and PhD-candidate Presentation! 👉 Read the full blog post: egu.eu/97T2DA

Are you on your way to #EGU25?! Share your #Train2EGU trip and let us know what you see on your travels!! #GreenEGU

🎉Last week great good-by party for our colleague Ron de Goede, which is retiring after many years working at the SBL group. Years full of great publications📃, education 🎓and outreach activities🚀, jokes and complains. We will miss you Ron, for the great ecologist and person you are!✨🪱

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 Soil, rhizosheath formation, and maize 🌱🌽. Congrats to Franziska 🥳 for a fantastic piece of her PhD work! Rewarding to see results from this challenging field experiment with rainout shelters 😅 Check it out ➡️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

✊📚📣Once again, speaking out against the Dutch government’s disastrous cuts to science and research 🚫. Some of our SBL team showed up to make noise and stand up for the future of knowledge! www.fnv.nl/cao-sector/o...

📣Join our group as Lab Technician 😀!

📢 🪱 Earthworms enthusiasts 😁 : The official website for the 13th Symposium on Earthworm Ecology is now live! ✨ 🪱 📅 SAVE THE DATE: August 23-28, 2026 in Wageningen, the Netherlands 🔗 Check it out and stay tuned for updates! event.wur.nl/isee13/home-2 📸Amazing pictures @frankashwood.bsky.social

📣Preparation ongoing for the International Symposium on Earthworm Ecology that will take place in Wageningen in the end of August 2026!

📣 Registration open for our Grounding Carbon Farming course 🐮🌱 🍃 Join us in Normandy, France for an immersive and truly transdisciplinary experience on farm 👩‍🌾 ✨A participant: "Looking from the bottom up—on the farm, with the farmers and their choices—was truly inspiring!" www.wur.nl/en/activity/...

Last week Frans fertilized our plots in the earthworm hotel: manure, compost, mineral fertilizer are going to feed our guests, we need to satisfy their needs🌿The hotel is used for research and outreach purposes. Find more informaton in the poster designed by PhD Tulllia Calogiuri @tulca.bsky.social

✨Yesterday SBL team building in the beautiful Renkum....sharings laughs, achievements, food, and artistic skills with each other is very important for our group and makes us grow together! Thank you to the organizing team, looing forward to the next one!

📣Freshly published by Jordy van' Hull, PhD in our group and Wageningen Environmental Research. Congratulations Jordy for this first paper 🥳! How can we reduce nitrogen losses from renovated grasslands 💧☁️🌱? Check it out 😉. 🔽 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A few starter packs of: @inrae-france.bsky.social colleagues on agriculture, food, environment, forests: go.bsky.app/CuM8ekE BETA Economics colleagues: go.bsky.app/FU6FAs6 Climate Economics Chair researchers: go.bsky.app/9cWunpz

Are you a post- doc interested in soil health and other dimensions of regenerative agriculture? We are looking to appoint a post-doc for a 4.5 yr position leading a monitoring programme in a large project on regenerative agriculture (ReGeNL). Read more here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

The 2nd edition of the MSc course Research Methods for Soil Biology, designed to prepare students to do a thesis with our group, is already in its third week🦠🍄! Students are supermotivated and the teaching team as well!Soil sampling and lab was already started last week🌱🧪🥼....soon data analysis!

📣Our Luciana Chavez Rodriguez @lucianachr.bsky.social is convening a session (09a) at the Goldschmidt Conference (Prague 6-11 July 2025) : "Microbial ecology and elemental cycling in terrestrial and aquatic systems: integrating biogeochemistry, geomicrobiology and modeling" 🦠🦠 Open for applications!

Last chance to apply for the postdoc/junior lecturer position in our group --> Deadline Jan 30th.

📣SBL Course announcement: soon registration will open for the next edition of our course 'Soil Biology Lab Skills Course for Assessing Soil Functions' that will take place on 1st - 5th September 2025 at Wageningen University. More information & registration check: biosisplatform.eu/services/tra...

Just 1 more day to apply! meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/sessio...

I am happy to announce that our paper "How earthworms thrive and drive silicate rock weathering in an artificial organo-mineral system" has been published in Applied Geochemistry! 🪱🪨 Here the link to know more about living (and dead!) earthworms and weathering: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations to our own @tulca.bsky.social, who showed (with @mhagens.bsky.social, @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social, @alixvidal.bsky.social and many others) that earthworms can contribute to silicate weathering both while alive and after they died! As always, great graphics by Tullia herself!

"How to monitor the ‘success’ of agricultural sustainability: A perspective", by Loekie Schreefel, our own @rachelcreamer.bsky.social, Hannah van Zanten, Imke de Boer, @rogierschulte.bsky.social and others. doi.org/10.1016/j.gf... #OpenAccess.

📣Consider supporting this wonderful initiative by my amazing colleague Gabriel Moinet @sbl-wur.bsky.social 🐮🏃‍♂️! He's running (like crazy! 😅) to raise funds and give two talented students chance to join our immersive PhD course on Climate Mitigation and Adaptation on Farms. Let’s make it happen! 🌍📚

Happy world soil day! Soil of the year in Germany is the Renzina (Leptosol). Rendzina is a shallow soil and common on carbonate-rich rocks. The name is Polish and describes the sound of a plough hitting the solid rock. Here is my favourite photo I took in the alps.

Hello BlueSky! Another refugee from Twitter / X here. We look forward to sharing news from our group, announcing publications and discussing our results with the scientific community here.

Earthworms inconveniently get into estivation or just toughen it out when conditions are suboptimal. Are earthworms just present or actually active? This new method by MSc student student Péter Garamszegi can help! With @alixvidal.bsky.social, @mhagens.bsky.social & @soc-wur.bsky.social.

Earthworm presence is not the same as earthworm activity, as they can be inactive for protracted periods of time. Our brilliant MSc student Péter Garamszegi came up with an easy method to quantify earthworm activity, using the difference in density between earthworms with and without a filled [...]

📣Curious about quantifying earthworm activity 🪱 easily and effectively? Hint: use sugar 😛! Check out our latest paper, led by the brilliant Peter Garamszegi, co-supervised by @jwvangroenigen.bsky.social, @mhagens.bsky.social and Tullia Calogiuri #OpenAccess! ▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...