➡️ @cnrsecologie.bsky.social @cnrs-dr12.bsky.social @mioceanologie.bsky.social @funding.ukri.org @erc.europa.eu @agencerecherche.bsky.social @cnrs.fr @cnrs-insu.bsky.social @royalsociety.org

And honestly, the importance & implications of this work can’t be overstated

So will someone please fund us?!
@matehg.bsky.social, Marc, Shamik and I have been working tirelessly to secure funding to explore this important knowledge gap

If you’re asked to review our next proposal, please be kind!

Such a delight working w. @matehg.bsky.social Shamik Roy & Marc Dumont

We’ve started digging into these interactions, in the field and in the lab, thanks to small consumables budgets, studentships and fieldwork grants. But this only scratches the surface of what’s needed

Why this matters:

Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined 🌲⛅

Even small reductions in microbial CUE could weaken soils as carbon sinks 🦠

This adds a biological feedback to climate change that is overlooked in carbon-cycle models 📈

We think that when soil microbes are exposed to antimicrobial compounds & warming, they may allocate more carbon to defence and maintenance, than to growth 🦠

This lowers their carbon-use efficiency, meaning more carbon is respired as CO₂ & less is retained in biomass and stored in the soil 🌱

Soils worldwide are warming - fastest in the Arctic 🐻‍❄️ where vast amounts of Earth’s carbon is stored 🌡️

Simultaneously, global antibiotic use is rising 💉 and antimicrobial compounds are increasingly leaking into natural environments 💊

What does this mean for the microbes controlling soil carbon? 🦠

Part of @hfspo.bsky.social aeromicrobiology project with
@jackiegoordial.bsky.social @greening.bsky.social @drmartinezrabert.bsky.social Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert & others @mioceanologie.bsky.social @cnrs.fr @cnrsecologie.bsky.social @cnrs-insu.bsky.social @cnrs-dr12.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu