Jasper Wubs
Soil Ecologist, Senior Scientist Soil & Water at Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands).
Soil Ecologist, Senior Scientist Soil & Water at Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands).
I study how plants and soil biota interact to shape ecosystem functioning, in the context of agricultural, forestry, urban and natural ecosystem settings, with a central focus on understanding and steering soil microbiomes for soil health and functioning. I apply a combination of experimental and data science methods, combining physico-chemical, management, plant and microbiome data, on a backbone of a transdisciplinary research approach. My ultimate aim? Healthy people on a healthy planet.
Since March 2025, I am the coordinator of the Living Lab North Netherlands on Sustainable Soil Innovation launched as part of the EU SOILCRATES project. Here, we leverage tailored regional soil health approaches, using bottom-up co-creation with a range of relevant stakeholders. Jointly, we experiment, evaluate and demonstrate their value for soil health and for farming businesses. Previously, I developped a novel method to measure soil health (MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship), designed and managed a national soil biodiversity sampling campaign in the Netherlands (OHM/SoilProS), and led a global knowledge synthesis on soil translocation for nature restoration. I contributed to the FAO 2020 State of knowledge of soil biodiversity report and co-wrote an open letter urging scientific support for the Nature Restoration Directive, which was endorsed by 6000+ scientists and contributed to the adoption of the directive. I serve as a domain expert for the Dutch Ecological Authority.
Keywords: Microbiome steering | Data science | Transdisciplinary research
The soil is home to an esoteric suite of inhabitants: thousands of bacterial, fungal and protozoa species spin their complex interaction web. Together with soil fauna, such as nematodes, mites, springtails and earthworms, producing healthy soil in the process. However, it is unclear how this exactly works, who is doing what and in interaction with whom? Soil inoculation, the deliberate introduction of novel soil microbiomes, can alter the interplay between plants and soil biota. I have shown that this leads to improved ecosystems with effects lasting potentially for decades. Soil inoculation is a method to experimentally enhance our understanding of the microbiomial drivers of soil functioning and health, by maintaining the biotic complexity of functional communities and their competitive ability. The resulting knowledge helps build resilient soils that support sustainable farming.
With the revolution in sequencing technology, automated sampling and high throughput analysis of physico-chemical properties, data collection is no longer a key stumbling block. Instead, the ability to work with these complex multidimensional datasets becomes the bottleneck. From the start of my career I have invested in building experience with data analytical techniques. Hitherto, I have worked with a wide range of approaches, including GLMM/GAMM, Machine learning (BRT, random forests), multivariate analysis, meta-analysis, spatio-temporal analyses, structural equations modelling, from global to Petri-dish scale. I was involved in the co-response network analysis tool SpeSpeNet. Currently, my interest is to operationalize causal analysis tools in soil microbiome and health studies.
During my time in the group of Johan Six (ETH Zurich) I found myself in a group hosting biogeochemists involved in hard-core mechanistic modeling and economists and political scientists engaging in qualitative research using (semi-structured) interviews and focus group discussions. Closely affiliated with ETH’s Td lab, I was exposed for the first time to the significance of the transdisciplinary approach to societal problems and the new role of science. What if your optimized, prototyped, scalable, natural science solution is something your stakeholders don’t want? Then you made a false start. Realizing Td-research is what I wanted to be able to do, I also realized I was not equipped for it at all. So I set out to teach it, or rather, to organize a course where I would bring in the good teachers and then I could interact and discuss with the experts. We applied for funding and in July 2022 ran the first African Roads to Sustainable Agroecology - Transdisciplinary Field Course in Kenya. The skills I learned in that course transformed my approach to stakeholder engagement and networking and has given me a profoundly deeper understanding of the why of many things in the process.
