Currently, in my PhD project my focus is about the soil microbial community dynamics in an agricultural system. I study how cover crop mixtures can increase the microbial functional diversity, nutrient cycling and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In a long term field experiment in the Clever Cover Cropping project shared with Wageningen University (Ali Elhakeem (CSA) and Rima Porre (SOQ)), the effect of cover crop mixtures compared to monocultures is studied. Biomass of the cover crops, biomass of the main crop, greenhouse gas fluxes, soil nutirent content and the microbial community is measured. The aim of this field experiment is to understand the possible advantages of mixtures over monocultures of cover crops.
11/2015 – present PhD candidate, NIOO-KNAW: Clever Cover Cropping: Optimizing resource stoichiometry for increased microbial diversity and functioning
- 09/2017 SOM2017 Poster Prize: Best Overall Student Poster & Best Student Poster in Session; Title: Cover crop mixtures: Do they reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
09/2013 – 08/2015 Master Biology, Wageningen University, Specializations: Bio-interactions & Molecular Ecology
- 02/2014 – 10/2014 Thesis in Soil Biology at NIOO-KNAW: Impact of bacterial interactions on antibiotic production
- 11/2014 – 02/2015 Internship at RIVM: Analysis of community level physiological profiles (CLPP) from Dutch soils
- 03/2015 – 08/2015 Thesis in Phytopathology at SLU (Sweden): study the Plasmodiophora brassicae-Arabidopsis responses
09/2010 – 07/2013 Bachelor Biology, Wageningen University, cum laude
Publication
Michiel Rutgers; Marja Woutere; Sytske M Drost; Anton M Breure; Christian Mulder; Dorothy Stone; Rachel E Creamer; Anne Winding; Jaap Bloem. Monitoring soil bacteria with community-level physiological profiles using Biolog™ ECO-plates in the Netherlands and Europe (2016) Applied Soil Ecology, DOI: 10.1016/j.apsoil.2015.06.007
