May 2023 > First samplings for the Soil O-Live project in Eastern Andalusia. I will particularly study the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi associated to olive trees roots, the accompanying vegetation and the community that can be found in the soil.

April 2023 > Running an experiment to deepen into the intraspecific varibility of mycelial exploration on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. This is a collaboration between the University of Jaén-CSIC-University of Copenhagen thanks to the visit of Rasmus Kjoller and Marta Gil-Martínez.

March 2023 > «Los microbios de nuestras macetas», un artículo de divulgación publicado en eldiario.es en colaboración con Garrido Sánchez, J.L / Estación experimental del Zaidín (CSIC-Granada). https://www.eldiario.es/andalucia/la-cuadratura-del-circulo/microbios-macetas_132_10027657.html

February 2023 > We are organizing the III Simposio del grupo Planta-Suelo de la AEET, 6-7 June in Barcelona. Check it out and list you up! (http://plansoil.creaf.cat/iii-simposio-del-grupo-de-trabajo-sobre-interacciones-planta-suelo-de-la-aeet/)

January 2023 > Kick-off meeting of the European project Soil O-Live (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101091255). This project aims to evaluate the soil conservation of olive orchards along the Mediterranean basin and, subsequently, to propose remediation measures. Follow updates in twitter: @SoilOlive

December 2022 > Mariona Pajares has led our first paper working with fungal leaf communities. As a first setp, the characterization of these communities has the potential to explain plant-plant interactions. Stay alert to subsequent publications!

September 2022 > Jorge Prieto Rubio successfully defended his PhD thesis at King Juan Carlos University. He studied how ectomycorrhizal fungal communities associate to Mediterranean trees to build up ecosystem services. It was a pleasure to be his co-supervisor.

July 2022 > Last samplings of REPNETS project. This time we visited Les Vosgues in France. Nice weather (cooler than in Granada!), and super nice and well-conserved beech forests. We recorded plant-plant interactions in these areas. From left to right: José Luis Garrido, Antonio Perea, Jesús Bastida, Mariona Pajares, Julio Alcántara, Jorge Prieto, me and Sandra Lendínez.

January 2022 > Our first manuscript on dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in sugar-cane fields has been accepted for publication in Soil Biology & Biochemistry! Check it out! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071722000426?dgcid=author

January 2022 > I am back in the University of Jaén. This time I have been granted with the Acción 9 program. This is an analogue to Ramón y Cajal fellowship that will allow me to attend national and international project call as principal investigator. I will be integrated in the group of Julio Alcántara and Pedro Rey and in close collaboration with EEZ-CSIC to develop a study line on the ecology of microbes associated to agricultural systems.

December 2021 > I have edited a short video about the sampling tasks we are carrying out in the SUMHAL project. Take a look! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoZnmfHZckg

November 2021 > A quick talk to the 9 years-old children of CEIP Virgen de las Nieves (Granada) about geological history of Sierra Nevada mountains.

July 2021 > After finishing my Acción 6 contract with the University of Jaén, I have officially joined the Life Watch Eric project SUMHAL (WP5) to work with José Luis Garrido in EEZ-CSIC. 

May 2021 > Finally I have the complete set of samples (olive tree, vineyards and coffee plantations) to submit them to the massive sequencing of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Many thanks to all the collaborators!: Mike Corazón, Ana María Sota, Sofía Rengifo, Elena Baraza, Josefina Bota and Arantxa Molins.

March 2021 > The colleagues from Peru, headed by Mike Corazón from National University of San Martin Tarapoto, has arranged the last sampling to widen the study of the dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in crops. This time coffee plantations.

December 2020 > We have been granted with a project funded by Reserva de la Biosfera de Menorca! These funds will serve to arrange an analogous sampling (as the ones I have carried out in olive tree plantations and Camilla Pereira in sugar-cane fields) in vineyards of the Menorca Island. The aim of the sampling will be to study dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in these environments. Headed by Elena Baraza and me.

July 2020 > This summer we have travelled to arrange the data sampling of forest dynamics in Spanish central beech forests (La Rioja) in the frame of the REPNETS project (headed by Julio Alcántara and José Luis Garrido). This objective is recording plant species canopy-recruit interactions.

June 2020 > I am having the help of José Luis Garrido, Antonio Perea and Jesús Bastida to save the spring sampling in the olive tree plantations (postponed by the covid). A spatially explicit sampling to dig into the dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal in olive tree plantations.

March 2020 > My teaching in «Project organization» of the degree of Biology (University of Jaén) has been interrupted by the covid pandemic. The second half of my classes will be held online.

December 2019 > I have joined the direction of the Jorge Prieto´s PhD thesis togeteher with Ana Rincón and Conchi Azcón-Aguilar. His thesis´ topic is framed in the assembly rules governing ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in Mediterranean forests.

July 2019 > I have joined the University of Jaén funded by Acción 6 postdoctoral program (UJAEN). I will develop a project on the dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in agriculture landscapes. This idea comes from a meeting with Soren Rosendahl and Camilla Pereira that we applied to study sugar-cane fields. This time I will try to widen the findings to the olive trees.

March 2019 > Camilla M.R. Pereira has visited us in EEZ-CSIC funded by the COST Action FA1405. We have worked in the bioinformatic analyses of our data on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi living in pristine forests in Brazil.

December 2018 > I was invited to join the ending meeting of the Ashback project (http://www.ashback.dk/) carried out in Elsinore, a beautiful town at the north of Zealand (Denmark). This project aimed to study the potential impacts of the release of ashes into the forest soils. Manys publications and a general conclusion: in the timeframe approached by the project no very negative effects were recorded for the soil biodiversity.

September 2018 > We are back in Granada. I return to my former home, Estación Experimental del Zaidín (CSIC), to work on massive sequencing of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and bipartite networks in Mediterranean forests as part of the ongoing project COEXMED-II (https://coexmed.blogspot.com/).

August 2018 > I finished my Marie Curie project in Copenhagen with a warm and funny dinner in the company of the good «Danish» friends. All our family will miss this time in Denmark.

July 2018 > Rasmus J. P. Jespersen presented his Master thesis successfully! Congrats! It was entitled «The development of arbuscular mycorrhiza in a primary successional system» and co-tutorized by Rasmus Kjoller and me at University of Copenhagen. This thesis has been embeded in my Marie Curie project and Rasmus J. has been key in the sampling and processing of samples.

May 2018 > We have held the PhD course on «Community assembly rules in fungal and microbial ecology: state of the art and up-to-date tools». During an entire week we have received the visit of Tancredi Caruso (Universitu of Belfast), Erik Verbruggen (University of Antwerp) and Otso Ovaskainen (University of Helsinki). Together with our local panel (Jacob Weiner, Soren Rosendhal, Camilla Pereira, Jacob Heilmann-Clauser and me), we have discussed about theory on community assembly rules, methodological approaches for their study, and the application of the developments in macroorganisms to the study of microbial communities. We received 23 students from 11 countries.

December 2017 > We have been awarded with funds from the Dept. of Biology (University of Copenhagen) to organize a course on Microbial community assembly. It will be held in Copenhagen from 30th April to 4th May 2018.

July 2017 > Talk and poster presented in the International Conference of Mycorrhiza 9 in Prague https://mycorrhizas.org/home/events/
The title: Dispersal and primary succession of plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal communities».

August 2017 > Finally, we have sampled in newly formed islands in the coast of Denmark. The aim: tracing primary succession of plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

October 2017 > Travel to visit the mycorrhizal group in Universidad de la Frontera, in Temuco (Chile). I am collaborating to optimize the molecular techniques to study arbuscular mycorrhizal communities associated to different varieties of wheat.

February 2017 > The talk Assessment of the recovery of functional diversity of ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in metal polluted soils was presented during the MEDECOS-AEET meeting 2017 (http://www.medecos-aeet-meeting2017.es/).

March 2017 > The master student Rasmus J. P. Jespersen is going to start his master project on mycorrhizal traits from a plant perspective in the frame of the DISPMIC project, under my supervision and Rasmus Kjoller.

June 2017 > I have been awarded with an Erasmus Teaching stuff interchange with University of Cádiz to teach some hours in the Biogeography course of Dr. Fernando Ojeda (Link)

December 2016 > I have given a seminar about the study carried out in the frame of the RESTECO project in the University of Copenhagen.

http://www.resteco.es/es/diversidad-de-hongos-micorricicos-asociados-a-las-encinas-del-guadiamar

October 2016  > Our communications for the MEDECOS-AEET meeting 2017 have been accepted as oral communications. Good news to start 2017 in Seville!

http://www.medecos-aeet-meeting2017.es/