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Download Department of Soil Quality SOQ Newsletter 7, May 2015
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Department of Soil Quality SOQ Newsletter 7, May 2015 Welcome the 7th edition of the SOQ newsletter. The next release is scheduled for July, so please send in contributions before July 1, to Marnella van der Tol Follow us on Twitter : @SOQ_WUR Introducing MSc students Hello!! My name is Marta Crispo and I come from Italy. I am a Master student and my specialization is Soil Chemistry and Chemical Soil Quality. I've just started with my research thesis. It is about the oxidation of silver nano particles (AgNP) in soil solution. My supervisors are Tjisse, Bastiaan and Gerwin. Hope to see you around the department! Marta! Introducing Somayeh Alvani ….. Hi everybody. I am Somayeh Alvani, PhD student from Iran. The subject of my thesis is "Morphological and molecular identification of plant parasitic nematodes associated with three important yield, Crocus sativus, Berberis vulgaris and Ziziphus vulgaris in Iran". Here in Wageningen University I am a visiting PhD student and I am a member of a research project to identify plant parasitic nematodes in a field experiment. ….. and Dominika Piwcewicz Hello everybody! I was asked to introduce myself with a brief e-mail. My name is Dominika Piwcewicz, I came from Poland and I am PhD student. I came to Wageningen for a six month internship with Gerlinde De Deyn supervising me. My initial goals are to improve my skills/ gain new ones and help in experimental work and analysis, my genuine goals are to enjoy my time in the lovely Wageningen and have as much fun doing the work as possible. My professional interests concern the problems of nutrient and energy flow in ecosystems. Although initially I was trained in animal physiology and have some background in molecular techniques I do mostly stoichiometric analyses of plant and animal material. Currently I use soil invertebrates to solve the paradoxes of stoichiometric imbalances existing in the detritus-detritivore trophic links. There is a serious mismatch between the composition of detritivores and decaying litter on which they feed. Me and my team want to elucidate what is going on in natural terrestrial ecosystems and inside of our model organism(s). We simply do not know how is it possible that poorly digestible litter (consisting virtually of carbohydrates) is sufficient to build the bodies of these small invertebrates while lacking essential microelements. Therefore in my work at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University I focused on the hypothesis in which fungi and bacteria play pivotal role in balancing the discrepancy of detritus/detrivore trophic link. We think that detrivores prey not only on litter but also on microbes and their metabolites. Here my long time, albeit rusty, expertise in molecular biology could pop in and I wish to improve in this field a lot. I wish I could work out a nice project focusing on identification of various microbes and an in-depth study of their role as key players coordinating and maintaining the flow of energy and nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems. Biodiversa eco-serve kick-off meeting at Atlas ‘How to make agriculture less damaging to the environment’ With a kick-off workshop at Wageningen, the Eco-serve project (Sustainable provisioning of multiple ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes) was launched on 15 -16 January. This project, carried out in 6 European countries is funded under the joint EU Biodiversa - FACCE JPI call ‘Promoting synergies and reducing trade-offs between food supply, biodiversity and ecosystem services’. The general objective of the research is to evaluate alternatives to current agricultural systems that confer adaptation to the agroecological conditions that are changing in agricultural landscapes due to increased rainfall variability under climate change. Click here for more information. News from WEPAL / Quasimeme, By Winnie van Vark Last year I announced that I succeeded Bram Eijgenraam as manager of WEPAL. From that time Bram was only responsible for the software and the scientific content of the PT schemes of WEPAL. In the meantime a lot has changed. In 2014 we started to merge the software of WEPAL and Quasimeme in cooperation with Jan Groenwold (Alterra ERA-team). By using the same software it is easier to replace each other, in order to ensure continuity. But, the processes of WEPAL and Quasimeme differ a lot, so merging is much more complicated than assumed. Bram retired on January 15, so Jan Groenwold is now responsible for the software. Again to ensure continuity Rob Smidt is appointed as deputy for Jan. Bram is still advisor of WEPAL. Jan Groenwold Rob Smidt Despite his retirement Arie Brader is still working as technician for WEPAL. At this moment he is training Fred Bransen who will probably succeed Arie at June 1 (picture is not available at this moment). As from May 1st, Steven Tito has resigned, as he found a new job as QA officer at the animal health service in Deventer. He was looking for a new challenge and will set up a GLP quality system. At this moment WEPAL has a vacancy for QA officer. Other activities of WEPAL: • The IAEA funded 33 laboratories in developing countries to participate in IPE (plant) and ISE (soil) for half a year. • There is a concept ISO standard for the determination of the bio-availability of trace metals in soils. ISO contracted WEPAL to organize a PT test to validate and finalize the standard. In the first ISE round of 2015 18 laboratories subscribed to join the validation. Next month we will analyze the results and report to ISO. • WEPAL participated in “de burenweek” in the context of “The year of the soil”, together with ISRIC and the laboratories of CBLB and NCL. From 2006 WEPAL is situated in one of the facilities of the PRI (plant research international) at Bornsesteeg 10, Bennekom, 2 kilometers from their roots: the Soil Chemistry and Chemical Soil Quality group. Quasimeme (Quality Assurance of Information for Marine Environmental Monitoring) part of the ERA team, joined WEPAL in 2011 in order ensure continuity and to obtain accreditation by the RvA (Dutch council of accreditation). Steven Crum is coordinator of Quasimeme and Ann Marie Ryan staffs the project office. Steven Crum Ann Marie Ryan For our young colleagues: You are cordially invited to visit us! Write workshop Soil Science Thom and Oene went to Ghana to provide a one week write workshop, from February 23 until February 28,for students in the framework of the AGRA Soil Health progamme at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). From the interaction with the students they would say that the workshop was successful, a nice experience to do and they enjoyed the atmosphere during that week. Logistics were all nicely organised by professor Robert Abaidoo of KNUST. The Spectacular Soils of The Philippines By Angie Straathof After thesis submission, I travelled to The Philippines for the month of March. Even though I was on holiday, I couldn’t help but enjoy the special feats of soil engineering that this beautiful country had to offer. Hiking through the rice terraces of the Cordillera Mountains was breath-taking. These terraces make it possible to farm the mountainsides and have been maintained for over 2000 years. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and incredibly well-preserved. The soil is a very soft silty-loam and the irrigation is completely natural (no pumps) although the village of Batad (pictured) did get electricity within the past year. The natural soil landscape is also quite impressive. High rates of iron oxidation here result in a deeply coloured red soil that, while quite beautiful to look at, is not particularly fertile. One especially unusual soil I encountered was the Blue Soil of Sagada. I suspect that its unique colour is the result of limestone high in oxidized copper content. If anyone from the lab wants to help me confirm this hypothesis, of course I brought a grab-sample of this soil back with me! A daughter for Diederik and Marloes Mother and Ona are doing fine. Please call first when you plan a visit. Fundraising ‘Spieren voor Spieren’ By Natalie Oram who baked cookies to sell What a beautiful day for a race! The sun was shining and with only a slight breeze we took to the streets of Hilversum! A great and busy race, but even better was the beer afterwards of course :) Thank you for supporting the race through the cookie fundraiser! It was so much fun to make all of the cookies, and the bake sale contributed 438 euros to the total of over 22,000 euros for Spieren voor Spieren! That's pretty great! As for my time, it turns out I need to 'quality control' the cookie baking a bit less and run a bit more ;-) it was not so fast, but it was a great run! And I enjoyed more or less all of the 49 minutes and 18 seconds of the 10 km :-) Thanks again for your support! Keep an eye out next April, I think the Spieren voor Spieren cookie bake sale could become a tradition :-) In this picture: Mart, the blond, Natalie, in orange and Jan Willem, in the middle. Walter Andriuzzi’s presentation at the Dies Natalis Walter gave a "pitch" presentation at the Dies Natalis symposium as one of the young talented scientists of Wageningen University. It was a nice opportunity to show people outside our department how fascinating soil biology can be, in fact several people approached him afterwards to tell him they didn't think soil (and earthworms in particular) could be so interesting. A video which includes his presentation is available at http://wurtv.wur.nl/p2gplayer/Player.aspx?id=cidAjN (the pitch starts at about 00:17:40 and ends at 00.24.56) or click here for the complete transcript. Upcoming oral defence ceremonies: Yunyu Pan on May 12, 16.00 hours on: ‘Speciation of trace metals and their uptake by rice in paddy soils’. Maaike van Agtmaal on June 15, 16.00 hours on: ‘Predicting disease suppression of agricultural soils’. Roeland Cortois on June 16, 16.00 hours on: ’Plant-soil feedback/microbial ecology’. Angela Straathof on June 17, 11.00 hours on: ‘The role of dissolved organic matter in disease suppression of agricultural soils’. 3 Terra Preta defences are scheduled on July 1: Tatiana Rittl at 11.00 hours on: ‘Challenging claims on the climate change potential of biochar’. Clara Pena Venegas at 13.30 hours on: ‘People, soil and manioc interactions in the upper Amazon region’. Estela Quintero Vallejo at 16.00 hours on: ‘Legacies of Amazonian Dark Earths on forest composition and dynamics’. Walter Andriuzzi on August 31, 16.00 hours on: ‘Species-specific earthworm functions in the soil-plant system’. Wei Qin on October 6, 16.00 hours on: ‘Exploring options for improving water and nitrogen use efficiency in crop production systems’. All presentations will be at the Aula of Wageningen University, Generaal Foulkesweg 1, building 362. Graduation ceremonies can be followed real-time on the internet, click here. Interesting links - - SOQ website Chemical Biological Laboratory Ecofinders Terra Preta Science cafe Rhizo4.org Wageningen Soil Conference 2015 colloquia Environmental Sciences http://www.soilecology.eu/ Papers The paper of Wenfeng Cong et al. Intercropping enhances soil carbon and nitrogen, is now featured on the cover of Global Change Biology. This is Wenfeng’s last paper (of his PhD thesis).