Looking to the future of soil biodiversity: the legacy of Diana Wall
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25674/434Abstract
Diana Harrison Wall passed away on 25 March 2024 in Fort Collins, CO, USA, her home for more than 25 years and where she was the Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES) and Distinguished Professor of Biology at Colorado State University (CSU) after having been faculty at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) there for more than a decade. While Diana was to become respected globally for her work in soil ecology, soil biodiversity, and sustainability science, she began her career as a nematologist, receiving her PhD from the University of Kentucky-Lexington in plant pathology. When faced with the challenges of being a woman scientist in a male-dominated era, Diana blazed trails. Undoubtedly, her early-career years were formative. The meticulousness and focus she honed-in her science during these early years extended to the expectations she held for her mentees, and in her approach to leadership as she progressed in her career. Those of us who were mentored by Diana wish to honor her and her legacy by providing a glimpse of not only her research and achievements, but what lessons she left us, her mentees, to carry with us through our careers and lives. Those of us who were close collaborators and co-editors wish to honor Diana’s exemplary approach to science, forward-looking approach, and impact on the science community as a whole.
Downloads
References
Eisenhauer, N. & Xylander, W.E. (2019): SOIL ORGANISMS–an international open access journal on the taxonomic and functional biodiversity in the soil. Soil Organisms, 91(2): 33. https://doi.org/10.25674/so91200.
Eisenhauer, N., Xylander, W.E. & Potapov, A. (2023): Spotlight on the unseen majority–the way to open community-driven publishing for global soil biodiversity. Soil Organisms, 95(3): 173–177. https://doi.org/10.25674/so95iss3id358.
Guerra, C. A., Bardgett, R.D., Caon, L., Crowther, T.W., Delgado-Baquerizo, M., Montanarella, L., Navarro, L. M., Orgiazzi, A., Singh, B.K., Tedersoo, L. & et al. (2021): Tracking, targeting, and conserving soil biodiversity. Science, 371(6526): 239–241. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd7926.
Guerra, C.A., Wall, D. & Eisenhauer, N. (2021): Unearthing soil ecological observations. Soil Organisms, 93(2): 79–81. https://doi.org/10.25674/so93iss2id164.
Kiers, T. & Tercek, M. (2022, December 12): Guest view: Protecting Earth’s underground heroes. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/guest-view-protecting-earths-underground-heroes-2022-12-12/.
Popkin, G. (2022): A fungal safari. Science, 377(6602): 142–147. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.add8089.
Sala, O.E., Stuart Chapin, F.I.I.I., Armesto, J.J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., Huber-Sanwald, E., Huenneke, L.F., Jackson, R.B., Kinzig, A., et al. (2000): Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science, 287(5459): 1770–1774. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.287.5459.1770.
Wall, D. H. (2007): Global change tipping points: above-and below-ground biotic interactions in a low diversity ecosystem. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1488): 2291–2306. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1950.
Wall, D.H., Nielsen, U.N. & Six,J. (2015): Soil biodiversity and human health. Nature, 528(7580): 69–76. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15744.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Monica A. Farfan, Elizabeth M. Bach, Nico Eisenhauer, André Franco, Tandra D. Fraser, Anton Potapov, Kelly S. Ramirez, Leena Vilonen, Carl Wepking
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Soil Organisms is committed to fair open access publishing. All articles are available online without publication fees. Articles published from Vol. 96 No. 3 (2024) onwards are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Articles published from Vol. 80 No. 1 through Vol. 96 No. 2 are available under the previous terms, allowing non-commercial, private, and scientific use.
