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11 MAR 2025
The 35th Irish Environmental Researchers Colloquium (Environ 2025), is a collaboration between the Environmental Sciences Association of Ireland (ESAI) and University College Dublin (UCD) occurred between 10th March to 12th March 2025.
The theme of Environ 2025 was ‘One Health for a Sustainable Future’, echoing most of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals such as Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life Below Water, and Life on Land.
Environ 2025 reflected how research in different areas can collaborate to create solutions for a healthy and sustainable nature and environment for the well-being of all living organisms in this world.
The MMeSH Team attended with a mix of oral presentations and poster presentations of their project research so far.
Michaela
Michaela
Michaela gave a 15 minute oral presentation of her project background, methodology, work so far, and preliminary results.
Her presentation was titled 'Developing novel soil health
indicators using lipidomic analyses across key land use
types in Ireland'
Lynn
Lynn
Lynn had a poster presentation on display throughout the duration of conference.
She also presented a 5 minute oral presentation on her poster contents, project work, and results so far titled 'Use of Genomic Tools to Link Soil Biodiversity and Function in different soil and land use contexts for Novel Soil Health Indicators'
Hayley
Hayley
Hayley also gave a 15 minute oral presentation on her project background, methodology, and work so far. As well as some preliminary results and conclusions.
Her presentation was titled 'Autoclaved-Citrate Extractable
protein assay as a method of assessing soil health
across soil types in Ireland'
17 FEB 2025
Michaela's Extractions
Michaela's Extractions
(A quick method breakdown)
(A quick method breakdown)
First, soil samples are freeze dried, ground up with a mortar and pestle, and sieved to remove rocks and roots.
Lipids are extracted by adding an exact ratio of phosphate buffer: dichloromethane: methanol from approximately 4g of freeze dried soil. This creates a single-phase solution that targets and extracts the lipids in the soil.
Next, the samples are vortexed and sonicated to aid in the extraction process then centrifuged to separate the soil from the lipid-containing extractant.
After centrifugation, the supernatant is drawn off from the now-settled soil and is added to a separatory funnel. In order to separate the organic and aqueous layers, additional phosphate buffer and dichloromethane is added to the extract and mixed thoroughly then left to separate overnight.
The supernatant drawn off from the settled soil
Phosphate buffer and dichloromethane added to separate the layers
Mixed thoroughly then left to separate overnight
The following day, the solution has separated into three main layers, the top aqueous layer, the middle protein layer, and the bottom organic layer which contains the extracted lipids. The bottom organic layer is collected and dried down using nitrogen gas, then stored in the freezer till it is derivatized or sent off for analysis.
The solution separated into three main layers
The bottom organic layer being collected for drying
10 FEB 2025
Students work updates
Students work updates
Hayley
Hayley
Hayley has moved on to measuring the pH of the MMeSH samples.
The method being used is derived from the FAO, found here. It involves shaking a 1:2.5 (w/v) soil to water slurry for an hour, allowing it to stand for a further hour, then measuring the pH of the sample once it has been resuspended by 10 seconds of stirring. pH is measured in triplicate.
16 DEC 2024
Students work updates
Students work updates
Michaela
Michaela
Michaela has been continuing to work on lipid extractions from the over 200 soil samples collected by the MMeSH team.
She has since derivatized and prepared her test extractions to be run on the GC-MS and is anticipating results early on in the new year.
In the meantime, she is focusing on reviewing literature and writing her thesis as well as completing online training courses for GC-MS analysis.
Lynn
Lynn
Lynn has successfully completed the amplification of the 16S rRNA gene in the soil bacteria and the ITS2 region in the soil fungi across all samples.
The amplicons are now ready for sequencing.
Pictured are some of the amplified 16S rRNA gene amplicons from select samples, visualized through gel electrophoresis
Hayley
Hayley
Hayley has completed ACE (autoclaved citrate extractable) protein measurements on the sample set.
This involved extracting the protein from the organic matter in the soil samples using a neutral sodium citrate buffer to separate the soil, dissolving soil protein with high heat and pressure in an autoclave, quantifying the protein content of the extract using a bicinchoninic acid (BCA) protein assay with bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a protein standard.
Pictured is the experimental data presentation given on World Soil Day.
12 NOV 2024
The annual Geoscience conference took place on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 at the Printworks Conference Centre at Dublin Castle. This year's theme was 'Science for Society'.
The MMeSH team attended with poster presentations detailing the updates in their work since attending the conference last year. Once again the conference was filled with discussions of science and policy working together towards a sustainable future. It was great to be a part of these conversations.
03 OCT 2024
Students' current work updates
Students' current work updates
Michaela
Michaela
Michaela is currently working on method test runs in the lab.
She is working on the lipid extraction part of her PLFA analysis method.
This involves extracting the lipids present in a sample of freeze-dried soil.
Pictured is one of these extractions, with the lipid layer visible as the bottom layer in the separatory funnel.
Lynn
Lynn
Lynn is currently performing polymerase chain reactions (PCR) on our samples in preparation for sequencing
This means targeting specific regions of the 16S rRNA gene for bacteria and fungi.
Pictured are some of the samples awaiting amplification in the PCR machine.
Hayley
Hayley
Hayley is currently working on method validations in the lab.
This involves running through each method with a test sample in order to ensure it's working correctly.
At the minute the methods she is validating are Soil respiration, the CO2 levels in the soil, and Soil ACE protein, the amount of protein subsantces in the soil.
Pictured is the acid-base titration from the Soil respriation method.
03 MAY 2024
Sampling Completed
Sampling Completed
As of the beginning of May '24 the Team have completed their sampling campaign.
Along with the help of TellSoilBio we've sampled 200 sites across Ireland. That's over 400 hours of work, in 18 counties, in just 37 days!
The team wishes to say a big Thank You to everyone involved.
Site Photos
Site Photos
The MMeSH Team have seen some beautiful parts of Ireland throughout their sampling campaign! Here is just a few.
10 APR 2024
'Kick-off' Workshop
'Kick-off' Workshop
A brainstorming and stakeholder networking workshop was held at Atlantic Technological University Sligo Campus on 10th April 2024.
The workshop invitation was circulated to all staff and research students, given that a large proportion of it's population are farmers, growers, scientists and environmentalists.
Participants were introduced to the MMeSH team, the project itself and whole concept of soil health. A brief presentation was provided titled: " The state of soil today and the drive for soil health". The purpose of the presentation was to provide some context and to stimulate thinking about:
The multifaceted, yet under-appreciated, critical roles and functions of soil,
The myriad threats to soil,
The current policy and legislative context,
Why we are in this problematic situation, i.e. why is soil health so difficult to measure and monitor.
With this context put in place, the first task was to brainstorm the following questions:
What does it mean for soil to be doing its job for your purposes?
Do you know when it is/is not doing well?
This was brainstormed in teams and teams then clustered common themes and after giving the feedback to all, the following question was discussed:
What information/approaches would help monitor the specific function of soil?
The teams emphasised what healthy soil for them meant:
Capacity for soil to filter water and avoid water-logging was a central issues and clearly relevant function for Ireland. The structure of soil needs to allow percolation and filtration of water to groundwater.
For farming and gardening, it is as simple as yield and quality of the target crop (e.g. grass for livestock) or plant (e.g. flowers). All recognised that this is only testing one traditional function and may be at the detriment of other soil functions.
Plant, animal and microbial diversity above ground and below, within the soil is essential.
Ideas for monitoring health, included:
Quickly assessing plant diversity with more variety. Above-ground diverse health vegetation should be an indicator and changes in that should trigger cause of concern.
For farmers, grass/crop yield and whether livestock are healthy or need additional nutritional/medical intervention.
The physical structure (texture, porosity) of the soil type needs to be there first, the rest will follow.
Before long, we were out of time and participants had to return to their many duties. This was a very beneficial 'kick-off' workshop.
A central theme that arose was that healthy soil has the correct physical and biological structure to maintain function and, for monitoring, some form of rapid biological indicator of health would be most beneficial.
The MMeSH team hope to run another workshop in the near future with more stakeholder groups and with more time for brainstorming and discussion.
Please do get in touch on social media or by email if you want to engage with us, have venues or events you think are interesting, may like to run a soil health workshop, or have ideas of your own!
15 APR 2024
Sampling Update
Sampling Update
The team have been in the field weekly since March.
Along with the efforts from our collaborator TellSoilBio, as of the beginning of April '24, we have completed 150 of our 200 sites.
That's 75% of the way through. The map is beginning to look very empty!
27 MAR 2024
ESAI Environ 2024
ESAI Environ 2024
The MMeSH Team had the privilege of attending the Environmental Science Association of Ireland's Environ 'From Harbour to Harvest' conference this March. The Team presented posters on their research and Michaela presented a detailed look into the MMeSH project.
07 MAR 2024
Sampling Update
Sampling Update
The MMeSH Team have begun sampling again along with the help of our collaborator TellSoilBio.
As of March '24 we have completed 120 of our 200 sites. We are now 60% of the way through our sampling campaign!
05 DEC 2023
2023 Annual BSSS/SSSI Conference
2023 Annual BSSS/SSSI Conference
12 NOV 2023
Sligo Science Fair
Sligo Science Fair
The aim of our exhibit at the 2023 Sligo Science Fair was to showcase a simple yet impactful demonstration of the importance of soil health and biodiversity to primary school children. We achieved this by creating two miniature ecosystems, one that was biodiverse with different plant species (healthy), and the other that was loose, mucky soil (unhealthy). Water was poured over the two different ecosystems and filter through into a clear cup. The water that came through the ecosystem that was more biodiverse came out nearly clear with very little particulate matter, while the water that went through the unhealthy ecosystem came out very murky and dirty. We would then explain how having a healthy soil and a biodiverse ecosystem is very important to the health of our other resources such as drinking water and to food/crop production, etc.
07 NOV 2023
GSI Geoscience Conference
GSI Geoscience Conference
24 N0V 2023
The Beginning
The Beginning
In September MMeSH began the sampling campaign in collaboration with TellSoilBio in UCD which increased our sample region from the Northwest of Ireland to include the East.
As of December '23 we have 89 out of 200 sample sites completed, marked by the black markers on the map. That's 45% of the way through!
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