Work Package 4 (WP4): Best tools for soil biodiversity evaluation
Leader: KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET (Denmark). K.K. Brandt
Deputy Leader: EIGEN VERMOGEN VAN HET INSTITUUT VOOR LANDBOUW EN VISSERIJONDERZOEK (Belgium)
The objective is to contribute to ongoing development of protocols to assess soil biodiversity.
The specific objectives are:
- To implement and further optimize a novel high-throughput quantitative PCR (HT-qPCR) chip for simultaneous quantification of 64 microbial functional genes of key significance for biogeochemical cycling of C, N, P and S in soil.
- To implement and further optimize assays for nematode biodiversity determination in soils via the implementation of a molecular method (NGS based DNA-metabarcoding).
- To optimize a FTIR spectroscopy based chemometrics approach to high-throughput monitoring of changes in soil biodiversity.
