Soil Ecology
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Soil Ecology
To be announced
Scope
Soils are pivotal for numerous ecosystem services, including delivering food, fibres and biofuels, clean air, drinking water and carbon storage. Many of these ecosystem services are at risk because increased land use intensity, global climate change, urbanization, and other human-induced environmental changes have resulted in loss of soil biodiversity. Restoring soils and soil functioning requires the restoration of physical, chemical and biological soil properties, as well as restoring ecological relationships. We may call this: ‘rewilding soils’. In this course, we will address ways to understand and promote rewilding soils, through exploring how soil ecology operates in healthy and disturbed soils, how complex networks of soil biota may be restored, and how rewilding soils might work in different (agricultural, natural, urban) environments and under a variety of (boreal-temporal-tropic) climatic conditions. We will also explore how international policy and (N)GOs that aim to restore soils operate.
Course set-up
The course is composed of a series of lectures, subsequent discussions, working group activities and poster sessions. The course will start on Sunday in the late afternoon (4 PM) with welcome drinks, an introduction and a keynote lecture as well as dinner. The course will run till Thursday afternoon (4-5PM), after which participants make their way home again. As soon as more detailed information about the programme is available, this will be published here.
Speakers
- Sara Baer (Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, USA)
- Jos Raaijmakers (Netherlands Institute of Ecology, The Netherlands)
- Maria Briones (University of Vigo, Spain)
- Jasper Wubs (Netherlands Institute of Ecology, The Netherlands)
- Loren Byrne (Roger Williams University, USA)
- Deborah de Bossio (The Nature Conservancy, USA)
- Willem Ferwerda (Commonland, The Netherlands)
Course organisers
- Wim van der Putten (Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, The Netherlands)
- Gerlinde De Deyn (Soil Biology, Wageningen University, The Netherlands)
- Franciska de Vries (Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Miriam van Heist (Graduate School PE&RC, Wageningen University, The Netherlands)
General information
| Target Group | The course is aimed at PhD candidates, postdocs, and other academics |
| Group Size | Min. 25, max. 40 participants |
| Course duration | 5 days |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Frequency of recurrence | Every three years |
| Number of credits | 1.5 ECTS |
| Lecturers | See above |
| Prior knowledge | Basic knowledge of soil ecology is assumed |
| Location | To be determined |
More information
Drs. M van Heist (PE&RC)
Phone: +31 (0)317 489131 or (0) 6 28521546
Email: miriam.vanheist@wur.nl
Registration of interest
At this moment, this course is not scheduled yet. However, if you register your interest in this activity below, we will inform you as soon as the course is scheduled and registration of participation is opened.