SOMER 2025: A year in soil
A brief annual note on SOMER group growth, research progress, publications, and field-oriented restoration work.
2025 was a year of rapid growth for the SOMER group. We continued to advance research on soil organo-mineral interactions and ecological rehabilitation, while beginning to translate laboratory findings toward mine-site applications.
The group published more than 20 papers during the year, including more than 10 first-author or corresponding-author papers in journals such as Environmental Science & Technology, Global Change Biology, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, and Chemical Geology. We also published a review in Science & Technology Review on the theory and technology of tailing pedogenesis ecological engineering.
Our work continued along three main lines: tailing pedogenesis mechanisms, mycorrhizal strategies for ecological rehabilitation, and interfacial processes controlling mineral weathering, metal cycling, and organic matter transformation. In 2026, we will keep asking how tailings can become soil more rapidly, how minerals, microorganisms, and organic matter co-evolve, and how laboratory findings can move into field rehabilitation.