IUSS Alert 203 (May 2022)

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IUSS News

WCSS 2022 Scientific Programme available

We are pleased to inform that the full Scientific Programme of the WCSS 2022 is available.

News from IUSS Commission 1.1 – YMPA’22

We are extending the deadline for applications for the Young Micromorphologist Publication Award – 2022 Competition, until 24:00 CET on June 15th, 2022. Application packages should be sent directly to the Chair of Commission 1.1. (Prof. Fabio Terribile, fabio.terribile@unina.it ). Detailed procedures can be found in the Winter’22 email (circulated by email on 16 January 2022).

IUSS Division 2 would like to recommend the following scientific paper

Hiroaki Shimada, RotaWagai, Yudzuru Inoue, Kenji Tamura, Maki Asano. Millennium timescale carbon stability in an Andisol: How persistent are organo-metal complexes? Geoderma 2022, 417 (1), 115820. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115820

The paper has been selected as Editor’s choice for May in Geoderma.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest reservoir of terrestrial carbon, providing significant ecosystem services. Due to the SOC degradation by improper human activities, more knowledge on SOC stability is important. This paper shows factors controlling millennium timescale stability of SOC under aerobic soil environment by comparing two buried Andisol horizons (2A and 4A) having different burial period (500 and 4,600 years based on tephra chronology) in Japan. The results show that linear relationship between SOC and pyrophosphate-extractable Al + Fe concentrations across all layers. But aromatic C was not the dominant C group, indicating that the molecular recalcitrance of aromatic compounds cannot fully account for long-term SOC stability. Furthermore, the paper shows that organo-metal complexes changed over the 4,100 years to the older horizon, that is, O-alkyl C declined more compared to aromatic C; Metals correlated more with alkyl C; Distribution of SOC and the metals was shifted from 0.2–2 μm to <0.2 μm fraction, suggesting partial breakdown of the microaggregates where organo-metal complexes likely acted as glue. The paper suggested that these changes may lead to the disappearance of buried A horizons in 10,000-year time scale. These information on the log-term SOC stability would help to understand human impacts on C cycle and climate change.

News from national soil science societies

Soil Science Society of America

Come join the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America at its Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD, Nov. 6-9, 2022, to help turn the strategies into actions and the actions into impacts.

All scientific abstracts are accepted! Gain presentation experience and professional recognition among premier agronomic, crop, soil, and related science professionals. Your efforts will expand your CV/vita, disseminate information for all to succeed, and foster lasting collaborations with your peers.

In person and virtual abstract submission available. Submit an abstract by June 21 to save; final day to submit is July 12. Don’t have the detail you need to submit an abstract? No problem! Abstracts at this point are simply “holding slots” that reserve your spot in the desired session. Submit now and update through Nov. 9. Need tips on how to write an abstract? Check out www.acsmeetings.org/submit for tips, regulations, and FAQ.

We invite you to join us in Baltimore and/or virtually: https://www.acsmeetings.org/

Brazilian Soil Science Society

Brazil forms a national network of universities to offer postgraduate course in soils

The Brazilian government agency for promoting postgraduate education, CAPES, approved the formation of a consortium of universities to offer a postgraduate course in Geoprocessing, Soil Survey and Interpretation, to be offered remotely, starting on January 2023. The project of the course integrates the future proposal of the Pronasolos University and its general objective is to train public agents and professionals in soil characterization, survey and mapping and interpretation of this resource for agricultural and environmental purposes.

The professionals will work in various activities and institutions, especially in the National Program for the Survey and Interpretation of Soils in Brazil (PronaSolos), which has the objective of mapping Brazilian soils, at scales ranging from 1:25,000 to 1:100,000. The lack of detailed information on Brazilian soils is a serious problem for national development, since, currently, less than 5% of the national territory has soil maps at detailed scales of 1:100,000 or greater.

The project of the postgraduate course was planned to be the origin of a future Pronasolos University. It is a partnership of Brazilian Universities, including, initially, the UFRRJ, UFV, UFMG, UFRA and UFG, with the support of the Brazilian Soil Science Society (SBCS) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA).

By Léa Medeiros, Jornalista

British Society of Soil Science

The British Society will be providing a £5,000 Interdisciplinary Grant which will be awarded to a group of Early Career professionals during the World Congress of Soil Science 2022 in Glasgow. To apply for the grant, at least one member will need to attend the workshop we are hosting on 20 July.

We will be offering a grant of £5,000 to a team of early career professionals attending WCSS22. A workshop will be held on Wednesday 20 July from 10.30am to 1.00pm (British Summer Time) to provide an overview of the grant, guidance on how to write a successful funding bid and an opportunity to network with your peers to create your multi-disciplinary team. This workshop is a prerequisite to applying for the grant and attendees must book their place in advance.

General News

News from the International Science Council (ISC)

Talk Back Better Webinar Series Launching in May

As part of the ISC’s Public Value of Science programme and in partnership with the Falling Walls International Year of Science Engagement initiative we are convening a series of webinars exploring a discursive analysis on science communication practice, along with practical tips for researchers and research managers. The series will run every week for 5 weeks starting Thursday 26 May. ISC Members are invited to register at the following link: https://council.science/current/news/talk-back-better-webinar-series-starting-may/

Call for papers on open science policies as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

UNESCO, in collaboration with the Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG) and the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) launch a special issue on Open Science Policies as an Accelerator for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Deadline for submission: 10 July 2022

UNESCO launches a global call for best practices in open science

Further to the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in November 2021, UNESCO is launching a Global Call for Best Practices in Open Science. The resulting compendium of best practices will be a useful tool to better understand the current landscape of open science, share lessons learned, identify and connect open science actors around the world, and further develop innovative solutions for open science in a collaborative, inclusive and transparent manner. Inputs can be provided in English, French or Spanish.

Deadline: 15 July 2022

[From ISC Update on May 9, 2022]

EGU SSS – OECS award and medals – Call for nominations

The call-for-nominations for the SSS Outstanding Early Career Scientist (OECS) award and the Philippe Duchaufour / Alina Kabata-Pendias medals is currently open.

Deadline for submissions is 15 June 2022.

Call for papers for special issue in Geoderma Regional on transitioning to healthy soils with agroforestry systems

A healthy soil is a living ecosystem that sustains biological productivity while maintaining the quality of the abiotic environment and protecting soil microbial, plant and animal life. Trees play a fundamental role in sustaining soil health, and they also contribute to the regeneration of degraded land. Agroforestry systems, where trees are deliberately combined with agriculture, are a sustainable land management practice that improves soil health by enhancing soil organic carbon storage, nutrient availability, and promoting soil microbial community diversity. Agroforestry systems also facilitate the transition to regenerative and sustainable land-use practices. However, to what extent can agroforestry systems fulfill this role? What conditions are needed for agroforestry systems to maximize soil health and productivity? These questions remain unresolved and require further research. This special issue will report on the most recent studies conducted in tropical, temperate, and Mediterranean climates that demonstrate how agroforestry systems are responsible for soil improvements as we transition to healthy soils.

Anticipated submission deadline: December 31, 2022

Does large-scale turnover in soil biodiversity mirror what we see aboveground?

Plants are foundational primary producers and form the great majority of biomass in terrestrial ecosystems. So, it is not unreasonable that we use vegetation characteristics, along with macro-climatic correlates and a dose of expert opinion, to classify large-scale variation in biodiversity (i.e. biomes). In his paper, John Davison, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Estonia, discusses a study which found that variation in most organism groups – including bacteria, archaea and different fungal guilds – was best explained by the combination of air temperature and soil pH; with eukaryotic groups responding more to temperature and prokaryotic groups more to pH.

[From GSBI Newsletter – May 2022]

Giant World-Wide Assessment of Macroinvertebrate Communities published

Patrick Lavelle and colleagues recently published their world-wide assessment of soil macroarthropods in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.

Macroinvertebrates comprise a highly diverse set of taxa with great potential as indicators of soil quality. Communities were sampled at 3,694 sites distributed world-wide. The authors aimed to analyse the patterns of abundance, composition and network characteristics and their relationships to latitude, mean annual temperature and rainfall, land cover, soil texture and agricultural practices.

Main conclusions: Soil macroinvertebrate communities respond to climatic, soil and land-cover conditions. All taxa, except termites, are found everywhere, and communities from the five clusters cover a wide range of geographical and environmental conditions. Agricultural practices significantly decrease abundance, although the presence of tree components alleviates this effect.

[From GSBI Newsletter – May 2022]

Global rainfall erosivity projections for 2050 and 2070

We present a comprehensive set of future erosivity projections at a 30 arc-second (~1 km2) spatial scale using 19 downscaled General Circulation Models (GCMs) simulating three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for the periods 2041–2060 and 2061–2080. The future rainfall erosivity projections were obtained based on a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) approach relating rainfall depth to rainfall erosivity through a series of (bio)climatic covariates. In the new study, we estimate a potential average increase in global rainfall erosivity between 26.2 and 28.8% for 2050 and 27–34.3% for 2070 compared to 2010 baseline. The results of 102 simulations and 6 aggregated datasets are available.

[From ESDAC Newsletter 141 (May 2022)]

Award for “Healthy Soils for Healthy Vines. Soil Management for Productive Vineyards.”

The International Jury of the OIV, the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, has awarded the book “Healthy Soils for Healthy Vines. Soil Management for Productive Vineyards” the PRIX de l’OIV 2021, OIV AWARD 2021, in the category Vitiviniculture Durable – Sustainable Vitiviniculture. The IUSS congratulates the authors Robert White and Mark Krstic on winning this award.

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