Professional summary

Els is a biogeochemist data scientist with expertise in data wrangling and statistical analyses of soil data in R, including large-scale monitoring, spatial and experimental data. At UKCEH, she is part of the Catchment to Coast group of the Soils and Land Use science area. Next to her role as data scientist, Els is part of the data stewardship team who provide expert guidance in all aspects of data stewardship, data management plans, and data publication. She also acts as a data centre operative for the Environmental Information Data Centre, where she supports scientists to publish their data in the data centre.

Els obtained a PhD in bioscience engineering from Ghent University in 2022, where she applied Bayesian statistics to study the soil legacy effects of tree species diversity. She remains interested in forest ecology and plant-soil feedbacks in an era of environmental change.

Selected publications

Dhiedt Els et al. , (2023), Soil legacies of tree species richness in a young plantation do not modulate tree seedling response to watering regime. Plant Biology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/plb.13597

Messier Christian et al. , (2021), For the sake of resilience and multifunctionality, let's diversify planted forests!. Conservation Letters, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12829

Other Publications

Dhiedt Els et al., (2022), Tree neighbourhood-scale variation in topsoil chemistry depends on species identity effects related to litter quality. European Journal of Forest Research, 141, 1163-1176, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-022-01499-9

Dhiedt Els et al., 2022, Little effect of tree species richness on within‐ and between‐plot variability in soil chemical properties in a young plantation forest, European Journal of Soil Science, 73(1), e13164, https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.13164

Dhiedt Els et al., 2019, Effects of decomposing beech (Fagus sylvatica) logs on the chemistry of acidified sand and loam soils in two forest reserves in Flanders (northern Belgium). Forest Ecology and Management, 445, 70–81, https://doi.org/10.1016/J.FORECO.2019.05.006

Dhiedt Els et al., 2021, Early tree diversity and composition effects on topsoil chemistry in young forest plantations depend on site context. Ecosystems, 24, 1638–1653, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00605-z