June 2022 – Smart Urban Nature Laboratory

SUN lab researchers explored human-nature relations in a pandemic time

23/06/2022 Anastasia Konstantinova No Comments

SUN lab researchers in collaboration with Australian and German colleagues studied the role of contact with nature during and after COVID-19 pandemic in Moscow. Scientists from RUDN University, the University of Western Australia, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research and Wageningen University conducted the research that aims to explore the pathways and implications of human-nature interactions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and how health problems and pandemic challenges can be mitigated through contact with nature.

The finding will help to find out what novel actions and adaptation strategies can be established that can have positive outcomes for both humans and nature. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant; the results were published in the journal Land in May, 2022.

Russia is a white spot on the tea bag index map: an approach to extend the network of global soil decomposition monitoring

13/06/2022 Anastasia Konstantinova No Comments

The tea bag approach (http://www.teatime4science.org/about/the-project/) for measurement of microbial decomposition of soil organic matter has been applied for mountain, coastal, forest and arctic ecosystems, while for urban ecosystems located in various biomes such experience is not widely distributed. In Russia there are few amount of sites for which was provided the soil organic matter decomposition assessment by tea bag approach.

Smart Urban Nature team together with colleagues from the Kola Science Centre RAS, Institute of Geography RAS, Southern Federal University, Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, RAS, the Central Chernozem Reserve, have decided to extend of the global map of the tea bag index and organized monitoring of the microbial activity of various soils in the European Russia with financial support of RSF No. 19 -77-30012.