The lab led by Ashish Malik focuses on understanding soil microbial processes and the underlying mechanisms from population and community to ecosystem scales. The aim is to link microbial biodiversity and physiology to element cycling with a focus on soil carbon. A key question is also to determine how environmental change affects these linkages and thus ecosystem functioning.

We promote diversity and inclusivity in our efforts and welcome researchers and students from diverse backgrounds.

Lab group photo taken during our academic retreat in October 2022

News

Nov 2022: Dr. Lisa Cole attended and presented her research at the Daphne Jackson Conference held at Royal Society, London.

Oct 2022: PhD student William Pallier gave his first conference oral presentation at the Flow Country Symposium on peatland research in Thurso, Scotland.

Oct-Nov 2022: New arrivals - Claire McNamee, Chance Muscarella and Vivek Kumar Awon join the lab as PhD students to work on three very exciting projects.

August 2022: Conference season - We attended the World Soil Congress in Glasgow, UK and ISME18 Symposium in Lausanne, Switzerland. Ashish was invited to give a keynote talk at ISME18. 

Jan 2022: New paper published in Functional Ecology. Title: Drought impacts on microbial trait distribution and feedback to soil carbon cycling. doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14010