Jaca (Spain), 31 July 2017
Subject │ Minutes of the MC Meeting of COST Action ES1406 “Soil fauna
- Key to Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Modelling (KEYSOM)”
Osijek, Croatia
06/09/2015
1. Welcome to participants
The participants were welcomed by Dr Juan J. Jiménez, Chair of the Action.
2. Adoption of the agenda and establishment of quorum
The agenda (Annex 1) for the Management Committee (MC) Meeting was adopted.
The quorum (2/3 of COST Countries participating in the Action) was reached (68.4%): 13 COST Countries
out of 19 attended the meeting (Annex 2).
3. Approval of minutes and matters arising of last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting were unanimously approved. Several weeks before this meeting a assigned
leader of WG4 resigned and an alternate WG4 leader was suggested by the Chair, initiating an e-vote
process. The proposed candidate (Prof. Paulo Sousa, Portugal) was unanimously approved.
A flat rate for the Meeting in Croatia was unanimously approved in advance and reduced to € 80;
4. Tour de table/ introduction of the MC members
The list of officially nominated delegates and the participants in this meeting with their contact information is
presented in Annex 2.
5. Update from the Action Chair
The Chair of the Action provided an overview of the Action, the budget situation, and expenses so far.
a. Status of Action, including participating countries
CSO Approval: 13/11/2014
Start of the Action: 16/03/2015
End of Action: 15/03/2019
Total number of COST Countries having accepted the MoU: 19 (Annex 3). This represents 5
countries more than the initial number of 14.
Total number of COST Countries intending to accept the MoU: 2 (UK, and Serbia)
b. Action budget status
So far, the budget has covered expenses of two conferences attendance by the Chair and Vice
Chair to disseminate the Action. The vice Chair Prof. Juliane Filser attended the Soils Wagenigen
conference (24-27 August) and the Chair attended the European Ecological conference (Symposium
22. Soil Health and Quality) in rome from 20 to 25 September 2015. Regarding the former, an
abstract of the seminal paper on soil fauna and soil organic matter interactions was submitted to a
new journal SOIL; this will constitute also the basis for an extended version with contributions from
MC members and other participants.
The Grant Holder institution (ARAID foundation) have received 60% of the total budget assigned
(84,990 €) at the end of June 2015;
Estimated costs for this meeting will be in the range of ca. 20,000 € (30,000 € were initially
assigned). The Chair proposed to move part of the remnants to the following meeting in Prague
(intended from 4 – 7 April 2016), including a one-day field trip to one experimental site undertaken
by Prof. Jan Frouz.
6. Promotion of gender balance and of Early Career Investigators (ECI)
After the nomination of the new WG4 leader the gender balance was satisfactorily maintained. Regarding
Early Career Investigators (ECI) these will be selected for 4 STMS.
7. Follow-up of MoU objectives
To date, the activities included in the GP1 meet the secondary objectives of the Action listed in the Grant
Agreement Period Goal 1 (“Netwoking and scientific knowledge sharing”). Regarding GAPG2 (“Capacity
building”) and GAPG3 (“Data retrieving and Management”), especially for the latter, the next months will be
crucial to achieve partly the secondary objectives.
During his visit to Rome, the MC chair also had a meeting with Mr. Ronald Vargas, Technical Officer at FAO
on September 25th to explore options to liaise with them regarding the pursuing of objectives in WG4
(“Dissemination of results from analyses, knowledge management and material for training and stakeholder
purposes”).
8. Scientific planning
The scientific planning of the Action is based after the leaders of WGs1, 2 and 3 gave in the WG meeting an
overview of the tasks and activities conducted to date and the work to be done in the following months. For
WG4 it was not possible as the newly nominated leader was attending another meeting. Dr. Pascal Querner
informed the MC of the preparation of a larger version of the initial paper intended to be prepared after
feedbacks received by email from MC members and participants.
a. Scientific strategy
Prof. Juliane Filser (WG1) provided information of the gap-analysis that should be performed,
literature search, based on processes and biomes; Prof. Sébastien Barot (WG2) on modelling issues
and key aspects to be taken into account and a conceptualized version of a model on SOM and soil
fauna interaction; Dr. Davorka Hackenberger (WG3) on data collection, data access and creation of
database and linkages with existing databases on soil biodiversity.
b. Action Budget Planning
The planning for the remaining of the budget, still large, will be mostly allocated to the next meeting
in Prague (Czech Republic), having several invited speakers, the STSMs and webpage preparation
(dissemination activities).
c. Long-term planning (including anticipated locations and dates of future activities)
No long-term planning and anticipated locations for future activities were proposed and discussed.
This will be assessed in the Prague meeting.
d. Dissemination planning (Publications and outreach activities)
The most urgent dissemination planning includes the preparation of the COST Action ES1406
webpage, and position papers, at least for WGs 1 and 2.
2
9. Requests for new members
A couple of requests for new members were received by the Action Chair, one from the UK (Dr. Davey
Jones), and another one from Serbia (Drs. Simonida Djuric and Timea Hajnal Jafari). It is expected another
member from UK (Prof. Pete Smith) and Estonia (Dr. Maarja Öpik).
10. Non-COST applications to the Action
Several Non-COST applications have been received, one from Moldova, from Egypt, and Russia.
11. Any Other Business (AOB)
No AOB issues were raised.
12. Location and date of next meeting
The following Meeting (also approved in the 1st MC Meeting on March 16th in Brussels, will be held in
Prague, in April 2016. The MC expects a higher number of participants in this meeting compared to this one
held in Oisjek (Croatia), as some potential participants raised concerns about the location. No more than 40
people should be attending, having in mind the average cost of 750-800 EUR for each participant.
For the 1st GP, 4 candidates will be selected for STSM. Several needs were identified for group 1: review on
fauna-OM interactions in different biomes and review of soil fauna distribution in the different biomes (two
STSMs). Suggestion of one STSM for WG 3 in the next GP:Collecting data and assigning them to a
database.
The MC will give a decision on the potential conferences and 2 participants during the drafting of the W&B
Plan.
Proposed budget allocation for the networking tools for the first Grant Period from 1 June 2015 to 31 May
2016:
13. Summary of MC decisions
A discussion was initiated about the rules of selection about STSM applications. The MC approved that the
STSM Coordinator collect the applications and then approved by the Core Group.
Action items:


Web-page – Three different template for the webpage were presented; one was approved and slight
changes and modifications were suggested (Annex 4). The participant from Univ. Vigo (Prof. M.J.
Briones) will give feed-back to come up with an operational webpage asap; regarding social media,
a Facebook group was established (having in mind that some participants do not have Facebook
profiles); “STSM” pestaña was suggested to be included under the general heading “activities”; it
was agreed on the idea to put “soil animal of the month” on the welcome page (where it is written
“example”). “Outputs” should be changed into “Results”. “News” instead of welcome text (white part),
and presentation of the project in the black part. A logo has been provided and finally approved to be
used in the webpage, presentations, posters (dissemination activities).
STSMs: We have to decide whom we should invite (up to 4). four missions will be financed. One
possibility is to send students abroad to do extra measurement on an existing field site / experiment.
An other possibility is to have students making some literature review for our synthesis papers. We
have to collect a list of sites and students, experiments, subjects; it was approved that the maximal
duration should not exceed 4 weeks (min. 5 d, 60 EUR/day + travelling expenses; max. 2,500 EUR),
3




and that they should be done by April 2016; a template for STSM call will be prepared and circulated
by Prof. M.J. Briones;
Position (perspective) papers: After the WG meeting, several position papers are envisaged after a
thoroughly literature revision: 1. A paper on Soil fauna and C sequestration across contrasting
biomes; 2. Climate change – biome change – mismatches/fauna;
Conferences – It was also discussed the options to participate in two confeernces in 2016 for the
Grant Period 2; Different targeted conferences have been spotted. The Chair will propose one
person to go to Eurosoil (Istanbul) and another one to Ecosummit (Montpellier), where two sideevent sessions were already approved. The decision will be taken by email exchange.
Training School – A Training School is proposed in Coimbra in September 2016, for the 2nd GP;
A new WG4 leader (Prof. P. Sousa) was unanimously selected and approved (e-voting process);
14. Closing
The MC meeting was closed at 17.30 h (CET), thanking Dr. Davorka Hackenberger (HR) for having hosted
this meeting at Osijek (Croatia).
List of Annexes
Annex 1Annex 2Annex 3Annex 4-
ES1406 Agenda;
ES1406 COST Country list having accepted the MoU;
ES1406 Attendance list;
ES1406 webpage template;
4