A window to the underground

Beskrivning

Soils form the foundation of life on earth and are likely the most species dense habitats on our planet. Despite their fundamental importance, soils and their complex microbial communities have historically been one of the most challenging habitats to study because of their blend of diverse materials and organisms in a complex spatial arrangement, and their opacity.

We have now developed a transparent microfluidic device that mimics main aspects of the soil spatial configuration, in order to study how soil microbes live and interact with each other and their surroundings. These devices, also known as Soil Chips, allow us to understand how microbes respond tospatially defined pores under different environmental conditions, and how this affects soil functions like e.g. physical soil carbon stabilization.

Our devices can be inoculated with fluorescent microbial strains and fluorescent substrates that allow for example, the investigation of organic matter cycling; or they can be incubated in soil to integrate the whole microbial community and soil mineral particles, to examine, for example, the influence offungal hyphae on the dispersal of other microbes, and on soil aggregation. Thus we call our chips ”windows to the soil” by which we can eaves-drop on a world without interfering with their dynamics: Jostling protists, tsunami-like drying-rewetting events, and fungi with character. Beyond the scientific potential, the chips can also bring soils closer to people and hopefully increase engagement in soil health conservation.

Period	2022 apr. 22
Evenemangstitel	Phytobiomes Alliance webinar
Typ av evenemang	Seminarium