Next ENT Seminar: 'Nematodes as Bioindicators of Soil Health and Climate Resiliency'

"Nematodes as Bioindicators of Soil Health and Climate Resiliency."

That's the title of the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar, to be presented Monday, Nov. 25 by Christine Sprunger, associate professor of soil science at Michigan State University (MSU).

She will deliver the seminar at 4:10 p.m., in 122 Briggs Hall. It also will be on Zoom. The Zoom link: 
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

"Soil health is an emerging field that holistically approaches key challenges within soil science through a chemical, physical, and biological lens," Sprunger says in her abstract. "In recent years, soil health has become foundational to sustainability goals within the context of regenerative agriculture including climate mitigation and reversing biodiversity trends. However, given the vast array of indicators used to quantify soil health, there are still several unknowns regarding which indicators can most effectively indicate specific soil health outcomes and ecosystem functioning. Key linkages between indicators and soil health outcomes are especially lacking in the subfield of soil biological health."

"Here, I will outline the case for integrating free-living nematodes into the soil health framework to better understand sustainability goals and climate resiliency within agroecosystems. I will explore how soil health and free-living nematode communities shift through time after almost 30 years of regenerative agriculture management. Next, I will demonstrate how nematology should be integrated with soil health indicators using advanced multivariate analyses, and I will end by talking about how nematodes are critical bioindicators of drought and flooding events within agroecosystems."

Sprunger, a member of the Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences faculty and based at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station, focuses her research on the intersection of agriculture and the environment, where she investigates how various agricultural management practices impacts soil health and ecosystem services, as related on her web page.

In addition, she is interested in "understanding how nematode communities can serve as a key soil biological health indicator within agroecosystems." She also explores "how climate change impacts rhizosphere dynamics and soil food web."

A native of Haiti, Sprunger has been interested in environment conservation and food security since her childhood.

Prior to joining MSU in 2022, she served as an assistant professor of soil science and rhizosphere processes at The Ohio State University (OSU) from 2018-2022.  Her resume includes:

• National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology at Columbia University, where she examined the relationship between soil carbon dynamics and crop productivity in small holder farming systems in Kenya and Tanzania. 
• Doctorate from MSU in crop and soil sciences and ecology, evolutionary biology, and behavior
• Bachelor's degree in forest resources and a bachelor's degree in environmental studies,  University of Washington, where she minored in human rights.

Her seminar will be archived on the ENT seminar page.

Nematologist Amanda Hodson, assistant professor of soil ecology and pest management, is coordinating the ENT seminars. The full list is here. For more information or for technical issues, contact Hodson at akhodson@ucdavis.edu.