„Don't Let It Stress You Out: Mental Health and Self-Management for Researchers“

We invite all PhD students and PostDocs to join us at our Early Career Workshop on Monday morning. The workshop will be held by the professional trainer Dr. Maik Goth.

Workshop description: As a young researcher you enter into a time of great change. You have to meet new professional demands (regarding your field, employment, economic, future concerns); play numerous roles (supervisor’s assistant, autonomous researcher, self-promoter, academic author); and know your personal qualities (disposition, work speed, goals). Oh, wait, there’s also a thesis to write and a private life to take care of! Don’t let this stress you out! There are tools for self-management that allow you to master your life in academia: (1) RESILIENCE, the ability to make you bounce back from setbacks and crises; (2) MINDFULNESS, the practice that allows you to keep your calm in the toils and troubles of your budding careers. This workshop introduces you to these tools in interactive units of analysis, self-reflection, communication and pragmatic counsel. My goal is to familiarise you with ready-to-use methods which strengthen your long-term productivity and your mental health, and which help you maintain a balance between work and life.

Auf dem Podium diskutieren zwei Journalisten und Buchautoren:
Dr. Susanne Dohrn (“Der Boden. Bedrohter Helfer gegen den Klimawandel“) und
Florian Schwinn („Rettet den Boden. Warum wir um das Leben unter unseren Füßen
kämpfen müssen“)
und vier BonaRes Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler:
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Brüggemann
Prof. Dr. Bärberl Gerowitt
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Kögel-Knabner
Dr. David Russell

Moderation: Hanna Gersmann

Gesunde Böden sind wahre Alleskönner. Sie spielen eine Schlüsselrolle beim
Klimaschutz, für sauberes Wasser und für die biologische Vielfalt. Fruchtbare Böden
sind darüber hinaus die Basis für die Produktion von Nahrungs- und Futtermitteln
sowie die Erzeugung nachwachsender Rohstoffe in einer umweltverträglichen
Landwirtschaft.

Je besser die Böden sind, umso mehr Wasser und Nährstoffe können sie speichern
und langsam an die Pflanzen abgeben. Gesunde Böden sind als Speicher von
organischem Kohlenstoff ein zentraler Baustein für den Klimaschutz, und hier wird
tote organische Substanz zerlegt und für neues Wachstum verfügbar gemacht.
Bewerkstelligt wird dies von einer enormen Zahl von Lebewesen, von denen es in
einer Hand voll Boden mehr gibt als Menschen auf der Erde. Diese verschiedenen
Bodenfunktionen sind die Basis für den Erhalt unserer terrestrischen Ökosysteme.

Die stetig steigende Weltbevölkerung und der zunehmende Bedarf an pflanzlicher
Biomasse für Industrie und Energiegewinnung stellt Böden, Landwirtschaft und
Forschung vor große Herausforderungen. Damit der Boden auch in Zukunft alle seine
Funktionen gleichzeitig erfüllen kann, brauchen wir tiefgreifende Kenntnisse über das
System Boden und ein sehr umsichtiges Management.

Was wissen wir bereits über die Bedeutung der Böden für Mensch und Umwelt? Wo
besteht noch Forschungsbedarf und wo liegen die Zielkonflikte, die sich nachteilig auf
den Bodenzustand auswirken, im Angesicht aktueller gesellschaftlicher und
umweltpolitischer Entwicklungen?

Über diese und ähnliche Fragen werden BonaRes-Wissenschaftlerinnen und
Wissenschaftler mit zwei Sachbuchautor*innen diskutieren und die Bedeutung der
Böden für die Erhaltung unseres Ökosystems aufzeigen.

There will be two poster sessions for presenting detailed work of the BonaRes projects about new developments from the 2nd BonaRes phase and to present an overview about the Rhizosphere projects, respectively. This year the posters will not be ordered by projects but by 7 thematic clusters which are:

• Nutrient cycling
• Impact of cropping systems on soil functions
• Biological controls on soil functions
• Data Analysis and Measurement Methods in Soil Science
• Farmers perceptions, socio-economic assessment and governance of soil functions
• Infrastructures for soil research data
• Modeling soil functions

Please select the preferred thematic cluster for your poster on the registration website. The number of posters/project is not restricted. The poster format is DIN A0, portrait. Early career scientists are invited to participate in the Early Career Poster Award. Please make sure that each poster states a clear research question/hypothesis.

Organizers: Sara König, Ulrich Weller

Process understanding as it is generated in the various BonaRes research projects should ultimately allow to predict the impact of soil management on soil productivity and other soil functions. This requires the translation of process understanding into model concepts. Also shaping scientific findings into model descriptions helps to identify knowledge gaps for further research. In BonaRes there are several modeling activities, both in the various projects and in the BonaRes Centre addressing a wide range of soil processes. Our aim is to discuss possibilities to integrate new research findings into the different model frameworks. Based on the composition of the group we will organize theme tables that will treat specific questions on a variety of topics. Different groups can be adapted according to the interests of the participants (suggestions are welcome):

• Feedbacks between management, subsurface biodiversity and soil functions
• Direct and indirect changes in soil structure in response to tillage
• Impact of soil management on nutrient cycles
• Phosphor dynamics

The final synthesis will provide the roadmap for further integration of the studied processes into the different modelling activities.

Organizers: N. Brüggemann, S. Bauke

The projects of the BonaRes funding initiative work towards improving the sustainable use of soils in agricultural management, with each project focusing on a very specific management strategy. As a result, a range of management tools, e.g., tillage, catch cropping, fertilization, or incorporation of organic soil amendments, are tested in several projects in parallel. While each project will interpret observed effects with respect to the specific project goals, we suggest that we may benefit from the fact that experiments are scattered across Germany with varying soils and climatic conditions as well as different experimental approaches. We propose that the numerous results already generated within the projects can be accumulated into a synthesis of recommendations for sustainable agricultural management in Germany. This workshop is intended to bring together participants from all BonaRes projects and to provide a first overview of which management tools can be compared across projects and which complementary or contradictory effects have been observed so far.

Organizers: BonaRes Assessment & Governance-Group

The BonaRes initiative has completed the first half of its intended funding period and an impressive wealth of scientific knowledge has been generated. In addition to scientific publications, this knowledge should also be utilized in practical applications. Our workshop is intended to facilitate such a transfer by defining criteria for sustainable soil management. As a real-life case we will address the start-up company landaio (landaio.com), which is offering crowdfunded financial services for farmers to help them acquire land. A central motivation for their crowdfunders is the intention to support more sustainable agricultural practices. This approach, like any approach to foster sustainability in agriculture, requires criteria for sustainable soil management. In this workshop, we will develop some recommendations and prepare the stage for further dialogue.

Organizers: R. Gebbers, M. Lorenz

In each BonaRes project, data analysis and measurement methods are used to study physical, chemical and biological soil properties. A methodological workshop can therefore contribute to the cross-fertilisation of the projects. The following aspects will be covered in the workshop:

• New data analysis methods for the evaluation of soil-related data.
• Data fusion: linking of soil-related data with different variables, different accuracy, different spatial/temporal resolution, different support, exchange formats.
• Use of freely available data (e.g. Sentinel, SoilGrids, OpenLandMap)
• New and further developed measuring methods on terrestrial and airborne platforms: e.g. hyperspectral measurement systems from x-rays to THz, 3D laser scanning, potentiometry, compaction
• Sensor comparison: Comparison of (potential) in-situ and short-range sensors for time- and cost- efficient soil investigation.
  

Organizers: J. Clayton, J. Michaelis, S. Rothardt

This workshop will provide a starting point for people who have no or little experience with R but are motivated to make the leap. You will firstly learn how to import raw data into R and check the quality of the data (e.g. remove outliers and correct typos). You will then learn some basic functions to handle your data, such as performing simple calculations, creating new columns and summary tables, and structure your data so that it is ready for making plots and calculating basic statistics within R (Wednesday afternoon workshop). You will need to bring a laptop with R and Rstudio installed.

Organizers: N. Gentsch, M. Schmidt

Complex field designs and environmental parameters can affect the results of scientific experiments. If there are confounding effects (i.e., samples derived from different sampling sites, at different times or with differing soil properties), simple linear models such as analyses of variances (ANOVA) have limitations. Linear mixed models (LMMs) allow both fixed and random effects in order to account for nested data or changing environmental parameters. The workshop will shortly introduce the theory of LMMs and provide illustrative and reproducible examples. Participants should have basic R knowledge and should be familiar with transferring data into Rstudio and with the application of linear models, such as ANOVA. Please install RStudio with the desired packages (lme4, emmeans, multcomp, MuMin, ggplot2 and xlsx) prior the workshop.

Organizers: NN

On Wednesday afternoon you have the opportunity to participate in a BonaRes Data Workshop organized by the BonaRes Data Centre. The workshop is addresses interested scientists who have already transferred research data to the Data Centre or who plan to do so in the near future. The focus will be on the upload of data to the Data Centre and the subsequent description with metadata. We will also describe the way to obtain a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for your data. The objective is to establish a trouble-free workflow for data provision and to get to know the "metadata editor" for the standardized description of your research data.

Organizers: Birgit Lang, Bernd Berauer, David-Paul Klein, Sara König, Nilupuli Thushangi Wadu Thanthri

R is a powerful programming language for analysis and graphics, but can be a bit overwhelming for beginners. In this workshop, you will learn how to do i) descriptive statistics and data exploration (e.g. histograms; normality tests; calculation of mean, median and standard deviation), ii) basic statistics (e.g. ANOVA; linear regression), and iii) the first steps of data visualization using basic R functions and the ggplot2 package (e.g. boxplot; scatterplot; regression lines; simple graphics design). Data and code will be provided. Participants should have basic experience with R (e.g. from R for bloody beginners workshop in the morning) and bring their own laptop with RStudio installed. A list of packages to install will be given prior to the workshop.

Organizers: Bernd Berauer, Sara König, Jessica Clayton, Birgit Lang)

As the pure amount of data increases, handling and visualization of such “big data” are important skills for scientists. For both, the workflow can be facilitated by automation. This workshop will give some guidance on advanced i) managing & juggling of data ii) visualization beyond basics including insets of graphs & stats iii) a quick introduction on how to automatize work (e.g. importing multiple datasets, using loops and functions to make multiple graphs). We will work with R-packages such as dplyr, tidyr, purrr and ggplot2 (and associated plotting packages) to show possibilities and alternatives. Some basic data and code will be provided but this workshop will also allow time for working on your own data and data-problems. You should be familiar with R (basic to intermediate experience) and have the data in an R ready/readable format on your own functioning laptop.

On Wednesday afternoon the BonaRes Centre will provide an infomeeting for the PIs of the Rhizosphere initiative to inform them about the BonaRes Centre’s services such as the Data Repository, BonaRes Portal, Cloud service and further options for collaboration. All Rhizosphere PIs are invited to join the meeting.