Multi-targeted metagenetic analysis of the influence of climate and environmental parameters on soil microbial communities along an elevational gradient

We are proud to announce the first publication resulting from the (hard) work of MicrObs, published in the open access journal Scientific Reports.

The paper analyses and discusses what influences soil microbial communities along our 1200 metre elevation gradient, in order to predict the effects of climate change on this important type of mountain ecosystems. While climate appeared to be a strong influence on both bacterial, fungal and protist communities, the influence of soil carbon and nitrogen (specifically the Carbon/Total nitrogen ratio) exerts an even stronger influence on microorganisms and plants alike.  Soil communitiesand other soil parameters varied considerably between years, illustrating the value of long-term monitoring studies in order to better understand the dynamic processes controlling the soil ecosystem.

Authors: Anders Lanzén, Lur Epelde, Iker Martín, Unai Artetxe, Carlos Garbisu,

Journal: Scientific Reports

Final project report

In spite of the name of this post and the low activity lately on this blog, MicrObs is still alive and kicking, so please stay tuned to this blog. However, the funding generously provided by an IEF Marie Curie grant from the E.U. is now over and thus, a final report has been published, describing what we have achieved in the project so far. It has been two very interesting years and most of what was planned (and a lot more!), we have managed to carry out. However, dissemination through scientific articles have not been one of these things, so far, and is still going on. Also, there is still sequencing data being generated from our last sampling expeditions, that is waiting to be analysed. You will be able to read much more about this here in not much time...

Although the project is now officially over, I (Anders Lanzén) is happily staying with my host institute Neiker until further notice, as I have obtained a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (named after the notorious count Juan de la Cierva, nobleman, engineer and inventor of the famous helicopter-like gyroplane).  As we are finalising the dissemination of results from MicrObs, we are also planning for the future of its Microbial Observatory established in the Pyrenées, aiming to secure more funding to be able to maintain this and carry out more work on microbial biogeography and climate change.

If you want to read a about our results to date, you can download the final project report here. Figures from the report below.

Proudly presenting our 10 min video presentation of the MicrObs project

Observatorio Microbiologico del Cambio Global-NEIKER

We are proud to release the first and Spanish version of MicrObs the Movie - a short documentary about the project and why it matters. An English version will be released very shortly.

Special thanks to Mikel Anza for a fantastic job with editing, direction and production, to Fernando Blanco for audio and for all involved!

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Estamos orgullosos de lanzar un video documental breve de nustro proyecto MicrObs.

Gracias a Mickel Anza por un trabajo fantástico con edición, dirección y producción, a Fernando Blanco para audio y a todos involucrados!

Photos from the Microbial Observatory

Apart from microbial ecology, photography is one of my big interests. Sometimes, carrying a heavy camera up to the beautiful Microbial Observatory was actually possible, together with sampling equipment, food and kilos of soil samples. But that did not mean I always had the energy to use it. Other times, I did. Here, you can find a small collection of photos from those times.

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of the MicrObs Microbial Observatory! This site will be continuously updated with news and publications from the MicrObs project. For now, you can read more about what MicrObs is under About MicrObs.