Evgenia Blagodatskaya

Research and Innovation

RUDN Scientists

Doctor of Biology

Professor, Leading research worker of Agrarian and Technological Institute of RUDN ,

Cogito ergo sum – “I think, therefore I am”.

+7 (499) 936-85-57 ext.: 2557

blagodatskaya-ev@rudn.ru

Contact a scientist

Scientific interests:

soil science pedosphere soil biology carbon cycle climate change nitrogen mineralization

1979 - 1983

Graduated from Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov (MSU) with a degree in "Pedology".

1990

Defended the doctoral thesis "Assessing the stability of microbial communities in the process of decomposition of pollutants in soil".

1995 - 2010

Awarded three research fellowships by German academic exchange service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) for creative work in the field of soil science.

2007 - 2009

Awarded Marie Curie research fellowship by European Commission.

2010 - 2012

Professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China).

2011 - 2012

Awarded Georg-August-Universität Göttingen prize for innovative research in soil science.

2012 - present

Independent expert of European Commission.

2011 - present

Teaches at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany.

2014 - 2015

Awarded a prize for innovative teaching concept of QPLUS campus of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

2016

Ranked among the top highly cited scientists in the field of "Earth Science" by Thomson Reuters.

2016

Awarded John Waid Award for the best review article in the field of soil science, biology and biochemistry published in 2015.

2017

Ranked among the top highly cited scientists in the field of agricultural sciences according to Thomson Reuters.

2018 - present

Leading research worker at the center for mathematical modeling and design of sustainable ecosystems of Agrarian and Technological Institute of RUDN.

Teaching

At present E.V. Blagodatskaya is Private Associate Professor of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany.

E.V. Blagodatskaya gives the courses of lectures:

“Microbiology of soil”
“Kinetics of enzymes and efficiency of carbon use”.

Science

E.V. Blagodatskaya established dependencies between the amount of added substrates in relation to microbial carbon biomass and induced priming effects in the soil structure. The phenomenon of the "priming effect" is responsible for changing the rate of destruction of organic matter after adding available carbon to the soil.
E.V. Blagodatskaya proposed a new approach to dividing microbial biomass into 3 sources based on a combination of 14C labeling with 13C natural abundance.
E.V. Blagodatskaya participated in the creation of the ORCHIMIC model, designed for large-scale applications of microorganisms that decompose organic matter in the soil.

Scientific interests

Soil biota;
Microbiology;
Efficient use of carbon;
Enzymatic kinetics.

Yakov Kuzyakov, William R Horwath, Maxim Dorodnikov, Evgenia Blagodatskaya. Review and synthesis of the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on soil processes: No changes in pools, but increased fluxes and accelerated cycles, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Volume 128, January 2019, Pages 66-78

Atmospheric change encompassing a rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is one component of Global Change that affects various ecosystem processes and functions. The effects of elevated CO2 (eCO2) on belowground processes are incompletely understood due to complex interactions among various ecosystem fluxes and components such as net primary productivity, carbon (C) inputs to soil, and the living and dead soil C and nutrient pools.

Jie Chen, Jasmin Seven, Thomas Zilla, Michaela A Dippold, Evgenia Blagodatskaya, Yakov Kuzyakov. Microbial C:N:P stoichiometry and turnover depend on nutrients availability in soil: A 14C, 15N and 33P triple labelling study, Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 131, April 2019, Pages 206-216

Microbial biomass turnover and the associated recycling of carbon (Cmic), nitrogen (Nmic) and phosphorus (Pmic) depend on their stoichiometric relationships and plays a pivotal role for soil fertility. This study examines the responses of Cmic, Nmic, Pmic, the microbial respiration rate (CO2 efflux), and the total DNA content to C and nutrient addition in forest soils with very low (Low-P) and high P (High-P) contents.

Ye Huang, Bertrand Guenet, Philippe Ciais, Ivan A Janssens, Jennifer L Soong, Yilong Wang, Daniel Goll, Evgenia Blagodatskaya, Yuanyuan Huang ORCHIMIC (v1. 0), a microbe-driven model for soil organic matter decomposition designed for large-scale applications. Geoscientific. Model Development, 11, PP. 2111–2138, 2018

The role of soil microorganisms in regulating soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is of primary importance in the carbon cycle, and in particular in the context of global change. Modelling soil microbial community dynamics to simulate its impact on soil gaseous carbon (C) emissions and nitrogen (N) mineralization at large spatial scales is a recent research field with the potential to improve predictions of SOM responses to global climate change. We here present a SOM 15 model called ORCHIMIC whose input data that are consistent with those of global vegetation models. The model simulates decomposition of SOM by explicitly accounting for enzyme production and distinguishing three different microbial functional groups: fresh organic matter (FOM) specialists, SOM specialists, and generalists, while implicitly also accounting for microbes that do not produce extracellular enzymes, ie cheaters.

Fan Yang, Jing Tian, Jeroen Meersmans, Huajun Fang, Hao Yang, Yilai Lou, Zhongfang Li, Kailou Liu, Yi Zhou, Evgenia Blagodatskaya, Yakov Kuzyakov Functional soil organic matter fractions in response to long-term fertilization in upland and paddy systems in South China, Catena 162 (2018), PP. 270–277

Soil organic matter (SOM) and its fractions play key roles in optimizing crop yield and improving soil quality. However, how functional SOM fractions responded to long-term fertilization and their relative importance for C sequestration were less addressed. In this study, we determined the effects of long-term fertilization on six functional SOM fractions (unprotected, physically protected, physico-biochemically protected, physico-chemically protected, chemically protected, and biochemically protected) based on two long-term fertilization experiments carried out in South China.

Aliia Gilmullina, Evgenia Blagodatskaya, Alexandra Crème, Cornelia Rumpel, Abad Chabbi Effect of grazing and mowing on soil microbial parameters and enzyme activity in permanent grassland soil, 20th EGU General Assembly, EGU2018, Proceedings from the conference held 4-13 April, 2018 in Vienna, Austria, P.15452

The effect of land use practices on quality and quantity of SOM is still uncertain. On the one hand, negative effect of grazing includes GHG emissions and, consequently, reduction of system sustainability. On the other hand, grazing may imitate natural processes and promote sustainability. Certainly, both of the theories are partly true and up to contrasting results were mostly explained by different pedological and climatic conditions and different grazing intensity of the studied sites. Our experiment included the investigation of two grassland treatments (grazing and mowing) at the experimental site SOERE ACBB (Lusignan, France) established in 2005.

Yakov Kuzyakov, William R Horwath, Maxim Dorodnikov, Evgenia Blagodatskaya. Effects of Elevated CO2 in the Atmosphere on Soil C and N Turnover, Developments in Soil Science, Volume 35, 2018, Pages 207-219

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration affects various soil processes especially related to carbon (C) and nutrient turnover. The methods to study the effects of elevated CO2 (eCO2) were shortly presented. All effects of eCO2 on soil are indirect: by plants through increased net primary production and belowground C inputs due to higher photosynthesis under eCO2. We summarized the impacts of eCO2 on (1) cycling of C and nitrogen (N), (2) microbial growth and enzyme activities, (3) turnover of soil organic matter and induced priming effects including N mobilization/immobilization processes.

Muhammad Shahbaz, Amit Kumar, Yakov Kuzyakov, Gunnar Börjesson, Evgenia Blagodatskaya Interactive priming effect of labile carbon and crop residues on SOM depends on residue decomposition stage: Three-source partitioning to evaluate mechanisms Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Volume 126, November 2018, PP. 179-190

Most previous priming studies describe the addition of single labile or residue C, ignoring the interactions of labile C and fresh or decaying crop residues commonly present in field conditions. Using a dual 13C/14C labelling approach in a 62-day incubation, we investigated the effects of adding labile C (40 μg glucose-C g−1 soil) together with wheat shoot or root residues (3.1 mg C g−1 soil) on SOM priming at three residue decomposition stages: intensive (day-1), reduced (day-9) and stabilised (day-24).