Professor Karl Ritz
Chair in Soil Biology
Location: Building 37, Cranfield campus
E: k.ritz@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 758064
Environmental Science and Technology
Current activities
Professor Karl Ritz’s research interests focus on developing a mechanistic understanding of the origins and functional consequences of the compositional and spatial organisation of soil microbial communities. This work underpins the development of frameworks for understanding factors that regulate the activity of soil communities, systems to manage the biota appropriately, and incisive procedures for assessing and monitoring soil health.
Specific areas include:
- characterisation and quantification of the soil biota
- factors which govern the structure and function of soil microbial communities
- functional consequences of soil microbial diversity
- quantification of the spatial organisation of soil communities and processes at multiple scales
- soil structure:biota interactions
- responses of fungi to environmental heterogeneity
- soils in forensic science.
Karl is a Chief Editor of the top-ranking journal, 'Soil Biology Biochemistry' and has held long-standing editorial roles with FEMS Microbiology Ecology, Mycological Research and the Journal of 'Soil Science and Plant Nutrition'. He is currently Chair of the NERC:BBSRC Soils Research Advisory Committee.
A passionate fundamental researcher, Karl is also committed to applying such knowledge to deal with the very challenging environmental issues facing mankind, and improving the public understanding of science.
Clients
- BBSRC
- NERC
- EPSRC
- Defra
- Environment Agency
- EU
Background
Professor Karl Ritz is a soil ecologist, with considerable experience in studying a wide range of interactions between soils, plants, microbes and fauna. He graduated in Agricultural Botany from the University of Reading in 1981, and completed a PhD in grassland ecology at the University of Bristol in 1984. He then spent three years at the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, studying microbial involvement in nutrient cycling in arable systems. He subsequently ran a diverse range of soil systems research at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, becoming Head of the Soil Plant Dynamics Group in 2000. He has travelled widely carrying out research, teaching and consultancy in many countries. He was Visiting Professor of Soil Microbiology at the University of Kyoto in 1997-98 and Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of Western Australia in 2007. Karl took up his current Chair at Cranfield University in 2002.
