The soil ecology working group had a successful academic year. Among other achievements, Roland and Jaak from our working group successfully defended their final theses and will continue their research in our working group.

Roland Lehemets’ master’s thesis focused on the Impact of Regenerative Agriculture Practices on Soil Biodiversity and was supervised by Tanel Vahter, Martti Vasar, and Maarja Öpik.

In his thesis, Roland studied the effects of regenerative agriculture practices on soil biota in a field trial. The results showed that the effects of more sustainable practices were not universal for all groups of organisms. In particular, more sustainable practices, such as the use of diverse crop rotations and the application of organic farming principles, had especially positive effect on soil fungi.

Jaak Pärtel’s bachelor’s thesis focused on the global distribution and abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and was supervised by Inga Hiiesalu, John Alexander Davison, and Martin Zobel.
Analysis of data from samples collected around the world revealed that ruderal fungal taxa have higher distribution and abundance in soil samples compared to non-ruderal taxa. Jaak also found that of the functional groups of Glomeromycota fungi, the rhizophiles, or those with a majority of intraradical biomass, have the widest distribution and abundance.

Congratulations to them once again!