The BES (British Ecological Society) Plant-Soil-Ecosystems Special Interest Group and IMBE (Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology) are working together to host this joint three-day science meeting on aboveground-belowground interactions on the 11th-13th of May 2022. We aim to highlight the most recent research within this subject and to promote interactions amongst researchers. The event is open to anybody with an interest in plant-soil interactions and will be held in Marseille, France. It will consist of two days of talks (11th and 12th) including selected presentations from abstract submissions and four invited keynote speakers, poster sessions and an optional conference dinner on the 11th. A fieldtrip to the O3HP has also been arranged for the 13th of May, where you will be able to explore and learn about a long-term experimental that reduces the amount of precipitation on a mature downy oak forest by up to 30% with a dynamic roof. This experimental site is home to several research projects that focus on aboveground-belowground interactions. This site is situated in the Luberon national park, 1h30min North of Marseille, and is hosted by the CNRS and IMBE.
The event will cover aboveground-belowground interactions under different themes:
- Litter decomposition (Keynote by Stephan Hättenschwiler)
- Plant-soil feedbacks (Keynote by Ciska Veen)
- Mycorrhiza (Keynote by Tom Parker)
- Roots (Keynote by Marina Semtsenko).
Each session will finish with a workshop-like discussion to explore current ideas and areas for further research. A poster session encompassing all of these themes will be held before the conference dinner.