I offer the expertise of my research team to a consortium to study soil biodiversity and functionality by both traditional cultural isolation methods and molecular studies. We have developed competences in -omics approaches (metabarcoding, metatranscriptomics, metagenomics, matabolomics). I have been studying on soils from different environments, including the polar regions and the Mediterranean area. We aimed to define both bacterial and fungal diversity and functionality in relation to soil physichochemical properties and their responses to environmental changes, such as climate change. I have been working for more than 20 years in Antarctic project. We are currently involved also in a project on microorganism-plant interactions in the forefield of Miage glacier (Mont Blanc) by both in-situ and ex-situ manipulation experiments (at the Ecotron facility of the CNRS, Montpellier, France) and a mico-restoration project in the mediterranean area aiming to define a microbial pool capable of degrading those allelopathic substances released in soil by invasive plants and improving the reconstitution of the natural dune vegetation.

Keywords: microbial ecology, environmental microbiology, soil microbial diversity, omics, climate change

D’Alò F. et al. 2021. FEMS Microbiology Ecology https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiac025
Canini F. et al. 2021. Fungal Ecology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2021.101041
Canini F. et al. 2019. Frontiers in Microbiology doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02348

Biology of interactions
Biology of Organisms
Ecology
Microbiology
Mycology

I am looking for a project to join on monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change.
Soil microbial communities are critical to the maintenance of key soil processes such as litter decomposition, nutrient cycling, and plant productivity and are thus integral to human well-being. Microbial diversity is strictly linked to soil physicochemical properties and interactions with other biotic components of ecosystems.
Many studies have been conducted on the main ecological drivers of fungal communities diversity and functionality in different environments, but we know much less about the major ecological drivers of other less studied soil organisms, such as soil protists, mites, nematodes, and viruses, as well on the complexity of interactions that exist between these biological players and, last but not least, aboveground plants.
As a result, I am looking for a multidisciplinary project in which I can offer the expertise of my research team to study soil biodiversity and functionality using both traditional cultural isolation methods and -omics approaches (metabarcoding, metatranscriptomics, metagenomics, matabolomics). I would like to define the major ecological drivers of the microbial diversity and functionality, as well as the network of interactions with other biotic compartments, and to predict how they will change under a warming scenario.

soil microbiology, microbial diversity, molecular microbiology, metagenomics, fungi, genomics, metabarcoding, ecological drivers, climate change

The SCAR Open Science Conference 2022 that will be held online from 1-10 August 2022
I will participate in a FEMS Webinar planned for September 22nd with a presentation entitled "Responses of high altitude soil microbiomes to climate change"