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excellentia.bsky.social
EXCELLENTIA_HE
@excellentia.bsky.social
Interdisciplinary research group at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, CZ - conducting research on forest ecosystem functioning and services, above and below ground. Visit our website https://excellentia.ldf.mendelu.cz/
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🚨New paper in Geoderma🚨 Across 9 #TreeDivNet 🧪experiments in Europe, we show that mixed-species 🍁 #forests 🌳🌲store ~9% more #soilcarbon than monocultures. Gains are strongest on cool, #climate stable sites, and linked to >fungal richness. #soilcarbon 👉 doi.org/10.1016/j.ge...
November 18, 2025 at 10:42 AM
On the CZ Day of the Fight for Freedom and Democracy we remember: rights aren’t given, they’re defended. The same holds for #forests – without active, 🧪 science-based care 🍁we lose 🌳 #biodiversity, 🌍 #climate-resilience and 🍄 #healthy-soils. Democratic freedoms let us protect these common goods.
November 17, 2025 at 11:39 AM
It's great to see Douglas L Godbold, @borisrewald.bsky.social, Marian Schönauer, & Pavlína Pancová Šimková applying their #EXCELLENTIA expertise in urban #trees, #soil-health #mycorrhizae, soil water #modelling, and EU #research-funding to address urgent needs in #Sarajevo, BiH with #UNSA colleagues
A look back at the very engaging and productive💧🏙️SPONGE-City BiH conference bit.ly/47apbZx where we
brought together experts from MendelU CZ and UNSA BiH on #Water Manag. & #Urban #Blue-Green 🌳 Infrastr. for #Sponge Cities. Thank you to all who participated & special thanks to Prof. Emira Hukic🧪
October 27, 2025 at 9:38 AM
🚨Join us on Wednesday, 5 November 2025, 16:00 CEST (Prague) for🧪 #forest🍁#ecology #seminar. Welcome Francis M. Martin @fmartin54.bsky.social (INRAE Nancy) 'Into the Heart of Darkness - #Genomics🧬 #Saptrotrophy-to-Symbiosis 🌳Forest #Soil #Fungioom' 🍄 ZOOM: excellentia.ldf.mendelu.cz/SEMINAR-SERIES
October 24, 2025 at 12:47 PM
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🚨Publication ALERT🚨 #Root #phenology in mixed 🍁 #forests 🧪2-yr study (oak, hornbeam, lime, maple): roots start > leaves; maple, hornbeam peak < oak, lime; #mixing mirrors dominant sp; leaf–root lag; winter growth at 4.2 °C; temp link flips; Qiwen Guo et al. 2025, Funct Ecol 👉 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
Above‐ and below‐ground phenology of four tree species in mixed forests and monospecific stands
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
doi.org
October 17, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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🚨Publication alert🚨 #Forest 🌳 #diversity ≠ automatic #drought resilience. Across #treedivnet 🧪🍁experiments, single-year drought growth reflected #trees#hydraulic safety margins & drought intensity, not richness. In consecutive droughts, div effects grew—direction varied by site. #Traits matter.
Multiyear Drought Strengthens Positive and Negative Functional Diversity Effects on Tree Growth Response

🔗 buff.ly/4qqRnFD
October 8, 2025 at 9:45 AM
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🚨Publication alert🚨Across 21 #forest 🧪🍁 experiments (84k #trees, 89 spp.), productivity ⬆️ with🌳 #richness (saturating) and variability ⬇️. #Functionaldiversity mediated gains; #structuraldiversity trended ⬇️. Selection effects dominate. Acquisitive, low-WD species benefited. doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
Diversity in Resource Use Strategies Promotes Productivity in Young Planted Tree Species Mixtures
By analyzing data from over 83,000 trees in 21 experiments across five continents, we found that forests with more species were more productive and had more stable growth. Productivity was driven mai...
doi.org
October 8, 2025 at 9:59 AM
🚨Join us on Wednesday, 8 October 2025, 16:00 CEST (Prague) for our 🧪 #forest🍁#ecology seminar, MENDELU, CZ "Landsharing: can #agroforestry enhance #biodiversity?" by Martin Lukac @mtnlkc.bsky.social, University of Reading, UK. Zoom: excellentia.ldf.mendelu.cz/seminar-series. Free. Q&A via chat
September 29, 2025 at 9:09 AM
2005–2025: 🎉 Celebrating 20 years of 🧪Researchers' Night in the Czech Republic and 🎓 MendelU! With the younger 🧒 generation showing a growing interest in mushrooms, particularly the tasty 🍄 fruiting bodies, but less so in hyphae /mycorrhizal 🌳 functions 😅
September 26, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Open-access article collection on destructive / sustainable #forest #soil #management, combining forest and soil #ecology #biodiversity with forest #engineering and #remotesensing topics - drawing attention to practices that hinder / improve ecosystems belowground. link.springer.com/collections/...
September 25, 2025 at 11:28 AM
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🚨SAVE the DATE🚨 "9th International 🧪 Symposium on 🍁Woody Root research" 3-5 June 2026, Como, Italy. www.uninsubria.eu/about-us/our.... Sessions will cover #root #ecology, #mycorrhizal dynamics, #belowground #technologies, #agroforestry applications, & #globalchange. Reserve your accomodation soon!
September 25, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Invitation to the #Excellentia co-organized 🧪conference on "Sustainable Water Management & Urban Blue-Green Infrastructure for Advancing Sponge City Perspectives in Bosnia and Herzegovina" 20-22 Oct 2025, #Sarajevo BiH, register until 15. Oct. Program at www.sfsa.unsa.ba/web/invitati...
September 25, 2025 at 6:14 AM
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🚨PUBLICATION ALERT🧪Soil carbon to go: #Agroforestry🌳practices including 🍁 #coffee sequester the highest amounts of #soil #C in mountainous Southern #Ethiopia. Agroforestry Systems. doi:10.1007/s10457-025-01298-2; Access: rdcu.be/eFJ90 AF systems based on coffee are key to enhancing soil C storage.
September 15, 2025 at 7:43 AM
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🚨Publication Alert🚨Patterns in #Root Phenology of Woody Plants Across Climate Regions: Drivers, Constraints, and Ecosystem Implications - Qiwen Guo et al. doi.org/10.3390/f160... - the 🍁study synthesizes data from ~60 🧪 studies to identify #phenological patterns of woody plants / #trees #belowground
doi.org
August 8, 2025 at 10:37 AM
The long-term 🌳#windthrow plots are fully set up one year after the 🌀 storm. It's always surprising how much 💪 physical work #forest #ecology 🍁 fieldwork involves, but the data on soil C dynamics, microfauna and flora expected in the years to come is much needed for sound 🌲🌳 management decisions...
June 17, 2025 at 5:27 AM
Beautiful (urban) forests (and some ancient grave stones) in the Sarajevo Canton, Bosnia. Thanks to the Forestry Faculty, University of Sarajevo for the excellent kick off workshop of our project "Blue Green Infrastructure"... Fostering CZ - BiH Forestry collab. on water, drought and tree health...
June 13, 2025 at 1:55 PM
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🧪 Counting #roots, #mycorrhizae and #pathogens in the #Eurasian soil transect to synthesise in-situ knowledge of "soil biology" for 🍁 #forests belowground. Great progress thanks to a highly engaged consortium! Example for Thailand: some soil data but little information on roots / mycorrhizae... dig!
June 10, 2025 at 4:57 PM
🚨The new 🧪publication by Marian Schönauer, @borisrewald.bsky.social et al. demonstrates that #ERA5-Land data is equally well suited to modelling 🍁 #tree growth as weather station data. ERA5-Land opens up possibilities for modelling and overcomes issues of data accessibility. doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...
June 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
🧪Join us on Wednesday, 11 June 2025, 16:00 CET (Prague) for our #forest🍁#ecology seminar, MENDELU, CZ "Heartbeat of the Forest: Drivers and Consequences of Mast-Seeding ..." by Mario Pesendorfer @mbpesendorfer.bsky.social @BOKU University. Zoom: excellentia.ldf.mendelu.cz/seminar-series Q&A via chat
June 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
🚨🧪SUMMER SCHOOL: THE HIDDEN HALF OF 🍁🌳ECOSYSTEMS (22 - 26 September 2025) at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Czechia. Programm and registration: excellentia.ldf.mendelu.cz/summer-school. Deadline for registration: 30th June 2025 (15 participants). See u soon!
June 3, 2025 at 4:10 PM
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Yes, we "hate" #roots and #mycorrhiza so much, we trench them as deep as possible... Just to show how soil Carbon will thrive (read: being lost) when they are not around! All 🧪power to the saprotrophs!... Two more trenches to do in CZ then it's summer secondment in 🍁Thailand! Yeah!
May 26, 2025 at 3:40 PM
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Chemical weathering of rocks and minerals is 🧪 important to 🍁forest ecosystem because it is the principal source of several macronutrients: Ca, Mg, K, P, Fe, Mn. First dozen EuAsiaN-ROOT satellites are now equipped across Mongolia by @burenjargal-2025.bsky.social and DL Godbold. Great start WP4.
May 22, 2025 at 8:43 PM
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🚨Publication🚨🍁🧪Ecological assessment of #forest #management approaches to develop resilient forests in the face of #global_change in Central #Europe. uge collaborative effort by Huth et al. 2025 dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ba... (124 pages :))
May 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM
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Eurasian Network for Tree-Root-Mycorrhizal-Pathogen Interactions in Forest Soils (EuAsiaN-ROOT) - Field sampling at University Forest Enterprise in CZ started. Colleagues from Kasetsart University, TH & Kazakh Research Institute of Soil Science, KZ and @ @excellentia.bsky.social PhD students
May 12, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Welcome to our new partner project @euasian-root.bsky.social and the >70 colleagues (and counting) from LUH, UNINS, CF in Europe and KIRSSA ((Kazakhstan), KU (Thailand) and MULs and NUM (both Mongolia). We look forward to working with you on the hidden half of 🍁🌳🌲forest ecosystem 🧪across Eurasia!
🧪🍁EuAsiaN-ROOT aims to unravel the complex relationships between soil, roots, fungi and pathogens within AM- vs. EM-dominated forest ecosystems across Eurasia .. read more on ... euasianroot.ldf.mendelu.cz
May 12, 2025 at 3:50 PM