News

New preprint on the redox properties of iron in clay minerals

Published:15.05.26 — In our new preprint on ChemRxiv, we investigated how the presence of iron in the tetrahedral sheet of smectite clay minerals affects their redox properties.

New PNAS paper on manganese oxide reactivity

Published:15.05.26 — In our new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we developed a thermodynamic framework to predict how fast manganese oxides dissolve under environmentally relevant conditions.

New paper on microbial carbon cycling in alpine soils

Published:15.05.26 — In our new paper published as part of the Emerging Investigator Series in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, we used shotgun metagenomics to investigate how microbial communities and their functional potential vary with soil redox conditions across alpine riparian landscapes.

SOIL at EGU 2026

Published:08.05.26 — Four SOILies presented their research at the EGU General Assembly 2026 in Vienna.

Welcome, Michelangelo!

Published:07.05.26 — Michelangelo Vuono started his PhD journey at SOIL on May 1st. Welcome, Michelangelo!

Meet the SOIL Lab

Published:07.05.26 — We are delighted to share this short film introducing the people, research, and places behind the Soil Biogeochemistry Laboratory.

New preprint explores soil carbon in subalpine grasslands

Published:24.03.26 — Why does soil organic carbon build up in some places but not in others, even within the same grassland? In a new preprint, Bence Dienes and colleagues take a closer look at this question in subalpine environments, where soils can change dramatically over short distances.

Welcome, Elisa!

Published:12.03.26 — Elisa just joined SOIL as a doctoral student. Welcome!

Welcome back, Clara and Xinru!

Published:23.02.26 — We are excited to have Dr. Xinru Liu and Clara Guadalupe Herrera as our two latest SOILies. Welcome back!

New preprint links microbial metabolism to organic matter chemistry

Published:22.01.26 — In his new preprint, Daniel investigated if bulk soil microbial growth and respiration is linked to the chemical composition of extractable organic matter along a geoclimatic gradient of temperate grasslands.

New project on clay minerals

Published:26.11.25 — Jeffrey Catalano and Meret Aeppli have received a seed grant to launch a new collaboration using iron-containing clay minerals to recover lithium from water while locking away harmful contaminants.

New SOIL members for fall semester

Published:02.10.25 — Clara, Arnaut, and Manon are joining SOIL for their theses this semester. Dylan joined us for his civil service and Gino is back at SOIL. Welcome!

New preprint on carbon cycling in alpine soils

Published:02.10.25 — How do microbes and organic matter shape carbon cycling in alpine soils? A new preprint from our group combines metagenomics and pyrolysis GC-MS to find out.

New preprint on manganese redox chemistry

Published:12.08.25 — Xinru's manuscript "Predicting rates of manganese oxide reduction from thermodynamic driving forces and structural properties" is now available as a preprint on ChemRxiv. The corresponding dataset can be found on Zenodo. Congratulations to Xinru and all co-authors for this amazing piece of work!

New publication in Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Published:30.07.25 — Our review article on Climate change impacts on organic carbon cycling in European alpine soils is now published open access in Soil Biology and Biochemistry.

Two new SOILies and one summer visitor

Published:29.07.25 — We are pleased to welcome Clara Guadalupe Herrera as our summer intern, Damien Roy as our new civiliste, and Anke Herrmann as a visitor!

Soil and gas monitoring campaign in Balmoos

Published:22.07.25 — Filippo started the field monitoring campaign for this project.

Orly and Daniel attended the MicroSoil workshop

Published:26.06.25 — Orly and Daniel attended the MicroSoil workshop in France.

New website on soil organic carbon in the Swiss Alps

Published:12.06.25 — The data collected and modeled by Kristina and Bence as part of their project on Mechanisms of soil organic carbon stabilization in mountain soils is now publicly available at alpinesoc.epfl.ch. Go and take a look!

Scientific Sense Podcast and Tagesschau

Published:05.06.25 — Meret was a guest on the Scientific Sense Podcast and the SOIL laboratory appeared on the Tagesschau.