SISS International “Antonio Berlese” Summer School
Soil Fauna: Applied Ecology and Systematics – First Edition –
September 1st-5th, 2025
The recent evolution to soil health concept poses a hot topic to the soil scientists, monitoring programme stakeholders and policy makers. How to quantify soil health, and the effects of soil threats, including climate change, without an insightful and complete assessment of soil fauna? And their resilience once the causes for soil degradation are removed? This school aims at filling these gaps, harmonizing, and updating information with scientific-technical support.
The benefits of this programme will lead to a more comprehensive improvement and thorough assessment of soil fauna status, distribution, and systematics. The ABS will co-operate with other institutions, including Universities, Museums and Environmental Protection Agencies, to widen the network of collaborations.
Potential students are PhD, master students or professional experts. The summer school is designed to obtain 3 European Academic Credit in Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS =3 Italian CFU), check it with your University before registration, providing this program. Moreover, we will contact professional registers to obtain credits.
A roster of experts will collaborate existing international networks to design a comprehensive and engaging curriculum, deepening the complex and diverse challenges of soil quality, health, and resilience, both on spatial and temporal scales.
The school covers the basics of soil fauna natural history and distribution, their taxonomy, ecological interactions, and conservation. It also will incorporate practical direct experiences, sampling, extraction, identification, monitoring, and research projects to provide students with real-world application of their learning.
PROGRAMME
5 days from 9 AM to 19 PM
• Front lessons: 17 hours
• Practical Activities: 14 hours
• Guided Study: 17 hours
• Final exam to obtain credits
Preregistration before June 16th (June15th 11:59 PM) application form at https://forms.office.com/e/eDvTeL8CKh
CONTACTS abs_school@scienzadelsuolo.org