And here it comes — summer! A bit late with this post from our group’s pre-vacation gathering. Proud to lead this team of seven: Raul and I in senior roles, Vinna, Maret, and Ovidiu as PhD students, and Katariina and Boris providing irreplaceable technical expertise. #proudPI

My long-waited first #sedaDNA conference in beautiful Tromsø.

Yesterday, we had the chance to present our proposal to the Estonian Environmental Board and Climate Ministry: 29 more fungal species for protection, in addition to the ~40 already listed. My favorite: Rigidoporus crocatus—locally common in wet alder forests, globally rare. Our responsibility!

Paper out in Journal of Environmental Management: How we manage forests today shapes what is possible tomorrow. We show that thinning may undermine long-term goals for carbon and biodiversity in boreal spruce forests. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Helping hands! This week, Lisa Collin and Enzo Lelandais—two interns from Lycée Agro-Viticole de Blanquefort—are assisting with our soil organic matter decomposition experiment. It is part of PhD student Vinna Cruz’s work (supervised by me and @ivikaostonen.bsky.social).

I see many people scared and confused about the "fact" that bananas are berries, and strawberries are not... Keep calm and carry on For botanist blackberries & raspberries are not berries, the sunflower is not a flower, palm trees are not trees, and apples are false fruits...

Hvad æder ulve? Et sted i Polen hvor man har undersøgt det, hvor Wartafloden løber ud i Oderfloden, er det 97% vilde (hjorte)dyr🦌, og meget få husdyr🐴🐮(3%), selvom der i princippet er nok at tage af: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This week, I had the chance to serve as a committee member at the PhD defense of Paulina Bergmark at SLU Umeå, in northeast Sweden! I picked up many essential skills—among them, an effective Umeå-style way of saying "yes": a soundless inhaled "jhu’". Jhu’!

Oh... When we set up this experiment on fungi and decomposition last autumn, we did not quite expect it to be swimming by spring. Looks like we will be offering a submerging test for Tomst data loggers 😂

That happy moment when months of prep are done, you are ready to lead your team into the field… and still blissfully unaware that the protocol you designed is wildly beyond human capability 😂

Extracting conservation-relevant signals from eDNA has followed me across studies. In this one led by Ovidiu Copot, we find that terrestrial fungal communities leave a blurred but detectable trace in running water — enough to distinguish catchments by drainage intensity! doi.org/10.1007/s106...

Välitööd jätkuvad! 🌿 Oleme sel nädalal taas üles seadnud 4 püsiala, kus mõõdame kasvuhoonegaase, võtame mulla- ja juureproove ja määrame biomassi. Suvekuudel lisandub ka elurikkuse seire ja muud huvitavat. 🌱🔍 Pildinäiteid põllult 🌾, metsast 🌲 ja niidult 🌼

"Keystone species" are those with a disproportionate impact on ecosystems, as @billsutherland.bsky.social nicely explains here tinyurl.com/2nps9abe. But what are the keystone fungi? 🤔 Given their functional importance and complex entangled communities, we might expect many—yet barely know any.

Undergraduate studying ecology or conservation? Lecturer teaching these subjects? Here is a playlist of 27 three minute videos, each explaining a fundamental concept. Hope it is useful. Say if any gaps you would like filled youtube.com/playlist?lis...

A well-executed study from the Swedish colleagues on the relationship between forest structure and soil fungal diversity. 60 soil cores from each of the 74 sites — what a dataset!

Nothing less than legends at the @oikosfinland.bsky.social conference in Jyväskylä! Here is Matthew Leibold explaining the back-and-forth in our understanding of species metacommunities.

Today we kicked off year two of our partnership with #biocomp project, led by @sebseibold.bsky.social by setting up audiorecorders and camera traps. About time! A few snow patches still there, but the forest is gearing up for a busy season!

Method development today: From Archimedes' "water displacement" to a 3D scanner for measuring the volume of complicated structures! Testing with #JanPisek, our partner within @futurescapes-ee.bsky.social. This is a wood block from our #decomposition experiment.

Post-Doc position for 3 years available jointly between University of Tartu (Estonia) and University of Aarhus (Denmark) on soil microbiome and biogeography. Skills required: bioinformatics, metagenome analysis, microbiology Contact: [email protected]

Black alder: a widespread tree thriving in wet places where others can’t. Yet, alder fens like this are rare, covering little of #hemiborealia. Why? Alder wood has low value, but Frankia symbionts enrich the soil—drain the fens, and preferred forestry species grow fast. Biodiversity vs. industry?

My first bsky post, and introducing our small working group. There are seven of us at the moment: one researcher, PhD students, and specialists. Pics from our season event, and first time on skates for some of us. Could not be a more proud #FreshPi !