Green Adelaide Podcast

Ep 18: w/ Kate Matthews | Flinders University | Soil Ecology PhD + soil science + CSIRO + soil research + urban microbiota + green spaces in cities

• Melissa Martin • Season 2 • Episode 18

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Meet Kate Matthews, your soil girlie (aka, soil ecologist), and PhD student at Flinders University.  

On this ep of the pod, we’ll be talking with Kate about soil - what it really is, why it is so important and Kate's recent findings into designing healthier cities with soil. 

Kate's research interests lie in the ‘bigger picture’ and how we can use soil science to inform decision-makers and landholders to create nature-positive outcomes. 

Dive into her research 'Designing healthier cities with good bacteria': www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2024/07/22/designing-healthier-cities-with-good-bacteria

This podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green, and wild in metro South Australia. Pod homepage: www.greenadelaide.sa.gov.au/discover/podcast 

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Kate Matthews:

Look for people who don't think about soil very often. What are you doing? It's literally a part of your daily life. Come on, now I get it. You know, I didn't really think about it either, and soil isn't very charismatic. It's not flowering and beautiful like a plant or moving about like an animal, and I think I don't know. I think it's easy to be overlooked. It's the behind-the-scenes work.

Melissa Martin:

You are listening to the Green Adelaide podcast. This podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. I am your host, melissa Martin, and on this episode we are talking about soil. I am joined by soil ecologist Kate Matthews, who is a PhD student at Flinders University. Her research interests lie in the bigger picture and how we can use soil science to inform decision makers and landholders to create nature positive outcomes. Welcome, kate, to the Green LA podcast. Hi, melissa, thank you so much for having me. Before we dive into soil and everything we need to know about soil, our first bit is to get to know you a little bit better and your career journey into the environment sector Can you tell us about where you started and how you got to where you are today.

Kate Matthews:

Of course, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk about soil and my career thus far. So I actually started at the University of Adelaide, uh, and I did a bachelor's in wildlife conservation biology. But to rewind even further than that, I actually didn't really understand what the environment was growing up. So in my gap year I did a little trip to Peru and did some volunteering in the Amazon rainforest and there was these amazing people from all over the world researching the plants and the wildlife and I remember there was even people studying birds and I got to do bird banding and such with them. And I realized when I was there I there. I was like, wow, you could actually do this for a job. That's pretty cool.

Kate Matthews:

And so the following year I enrolled in a bachelor with wildlife conservation biology and then through that I decided to go on and do my honours in soil science and then afterwards I had a little break. I worked at a place called TURN, which stands for Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. I did a little bit of time there and then there was the opportunity to start my PhD, partnered with the CSIRO, and I couldn't say no. And so I started that at University of Adelaide but then ended up moving to Flinders following my primary supervisor, tim Cavagnaro. Shout out, he is a legend and yeah, now I'm doing my PhD in soil ecology.

Melissa Martin:

And what? So you finished high school and took a gap year, went to Peru, which sounds amazing. When you were wrapping up high school, did you know, besides your gap year, what was next? Or was that whole year was trying to figure that out.

Kate Matthews:

That whole year was, yeah, it was saving up money. I worked Actually, my mum had a little cafe at the time and so I was behind the counter making coffees, running around, saving up money so that I could go on this trip to Peru. And I had actually enrolled in a Bachelor of Biomedical Science after my year 12, my 12th year because I had a general interest in biology, but I didn't really know where I wanted to go with that, and so the Peru trip was really about getting out there. I'd never left Australia before, I'd never gone on a trip by myself before, and so, yeah, I just wanted to go and see a bit of the world, and once I it was really serendipitous Once I went there and realized, wow, you can study the environment and get to be out in it all and be taking data. I kind of had this realization of I need to do this for my life and I actually ended up switching from the biomedical degree to wildlife conservation three days before classes started, oh yeah.

Melissa Martin:

What a rush yeah completely. And so you went from that wildlife conservation then you went to the more soil ecology. What drew you to, I guess, soil?

Kate Matthews:

soil, isn't it just so sexy, charismatic, um, yeah, I, yeah. So it started as a general interest in the environment and yes, I don't know if other people feel this, but I feel like you go in with a general interest of, yeah, okay, I'm going to go study the environment because I love the environment, and then slowly you follow your areas of interest right. And so for me that was plants. And in third year I did a lot of plant subjects and I remember I sat in this lecture about mycorrhizal fungi and their connection with plants and how they have the symbiotic and mutualistic associations and this whole world of soil I had never even considered and it kind of was like a light bulb moment for me of like, wow, this seems really cool.

Kate Matthews:

And at the end of the lecture, my now supervisor, tim Cavagnaro, who was giving the lecture, he said don't count out soil for your honours projects. If you're interested, come have a chat. And so I did, and I really have never looked back. If you're interested, come have a chat. And so I did, and I really have never looked back. It's just, I feel like soil is often overlooked when we're talking about the environment and be that natural systems or agronomy or anything in between, and so it seemed like a really nice spot to be in, for me at least.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, how did you make the decision to keep going down the PhD path?

Kate Matthews:

Look, it's a little bit silly, but I kind of had this thought I spoke to a lot of people right and I did a lot of volunteering, like with DAW and all around the joint in wetlands and on the Manabungara project, and I spoke to a lot of senior ecologists and I said, asked them why they hadn't had or hadn't done a PhD, and a lot of them had said you know, I'll get back to it, I'd always planned on doing it but you know, life got in the way. I had a wife and a kid or a partner that, and I needed to look after my finances. And we know famously that PhDs don't actually, you know, it's not a lot of money that you're getting from them. And so I was like I love soil, I you know some people don't want to continue their studies and I still felt like that energy for what I was doing and I really wanted to do that and I thought, why not?

Kate Matthews:

Why, if I put it off, maybe I won't come back to it. And actually right now I'm in a position in my life where this kind of this amount of money is actually a good amount of money, is actually a good amount of money for me to live on as a student who has not been living on a lot of money. So it kind of, yeah, I was still interested, it was like why not? And also it was livable for me. So I'm pretty lucky in that respect.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the opportunities when you can. And obviously you could see that based on your own situation and you had to take it instead of be like, oh, maybe later, and then you know, 20 years later you might not have done it still.

Kate Matthews:

Yeah exactly, and maybe I would have too as well. You know, like you can't know, but for me it just felt right to do it now.

Melissa Martin:

Define success in your field? So I guess you're more in the research for the environment sector at the moment, and how would you define success in your field?

Kate Matthews:

My field. I feel successful when I'm working towards something that I find meaningful and for me, I think soil is that sweet spot of like huge impact, like huge reach, because soil is everywhere and the research I'm conducting may or may not be able to be applied in many, many different places, and for me that feels like a success in a way. I mean places and for me that feels like a success in a way. I mean it's hard not to get caught up in the traditional sense of academic success, be that writing papers and getting research grants and whatnot. But I feel for me, as long as I'm still enjoying it, then I'm feeling productive and hitting goals Well, of course also looking after myself and feeling connected with my friends and family, then that is a successful career for me.

Melissa Martin:

And what do you feel is next for you? So obviously you're completing your PhD, but um, do you have any plans for what's next?

Kate Matthews:

that is the. I don't know if you know this, but that is the one question. You do not ask these students.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. While you're cooking, I'll tell you what's next.

Kate Matthews:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, look, I don't know, I don't know if I'm cut out for the the grind of academia. I much prefer talking to people about soil and so, wherever that takes me, maybe into education or I've been doing a bit of work with I'm on the committee for the Young in Soil Science, south Australia, and we've been creating these networking events and soil pit days for young students coming up in soil science, because I really do think practical skills and such are not extremely accessible within the academic system in South Australia. So whether it's in that space, whether it's just chatting, maybe I'll go back to the barista life, who knows? But for now I'm happy sitting behind my desk in a basement.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, and now just to share with our listeners, Kate is actually in Germany where she's got a scholarship to study soil at one of the German universities. I guess, Kate, do you want to talk a little bit about I guess for baby aspiring students who want to do placements in different countries maybe a little bit how you came about that kind of opportunity and how, I guess, you took the opportunity.

Kate Matthews:

Absolutely. I wish I knew better when I was in undergrad how many opportunities there are out there. If you are a student, people want to throw money at you. There are so many opportunities. If you go on any kind of academic website, it doesn't even necessarily have to be for your university. There are opportunities out there, be that for attending conferences, going overseas, conducting research. There are so many opportunities out there. And so when I got to my PhD, I was like, well, I am on a PhD scholarship, I cannot afford to travel. Why not have a look for some scholarships where I can maybe do a little bit of a placement overseas? And I found the one that I have right now, which is a DAAD scholarship. It is a government scholarship and uh, and I just applied and I happened to get it. I would say that is another tip is just apply for it. You never know. And the amount of times I've just thrown an application together last minute and it's been accepted is insane. It's yeah it's amazing.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, take those opportunities and you don't know where they will actually flourish. Just put your name in the game.

Kate Matthews:

Exactly. You can't expect to get it if you don't even apply. Why not just try?

Melissa Martin:

Now we're going to jump into the next section of our podcast, which is the rapid fire round. So in this section I am going to ask you 10 totally random questions, which the answer will be like what's your favorite, this or that kind of questions, and it's really just to get to know you a bit differently. So our listeners can, you know, know you outside of the environment sector a little bit. All right, here we go. First question do you prefer texting or talking?

Kate Matthews:

Talking 100% of the time.

Melissa Martin:

Favourite day of the week.

Kate Matthews:

Ooh, maybe a Sunday, oh, slow Sunday.

Melissa Martin:

Yeah, oh, because I call it scary Sunday Really.

Kate Matthews:

Yeah, I don't know. I really like it's just like ah, we made it, we're at the end of the week, we really did that and I, like you know, getting my life in order, I feel productive. You know a bit of meal prep, doing the laundry.

Melissa Martin:

Sexy.

Kate Matthews:

Nickname your parents used to call you, or still do. My mum calls me Kitty and my dad calls me Munch.

Melissa Martin:

Which is short for Munchkin, just like. Okay, would you rather be able to?

Kate Matthews:

speak every language in the world, or be able to talk to animals. Oh, oh, you're talking to a biologist as well, hey, well, given that I'm in germany right now with very little German skills, it feels very relevant to me that I should be able to talk every language. I feel like I'm meeting lots of people, you know, lots of international students as well, and I'm forcing them all to speak English with me, which feels very, very silly. So so, yes, every language.

Melissa Martin:

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

Kate Matthews:

It depends. I'm very much like if I have an hour to get ready, it will take me an hour, and if I need to be ready in 15 minutes, I can get it done. I might look a bit disheveled, but I will be there on time on a scale to one to ten.

Melissa Martin:

How good of a driver are you?

Kate Matthews:

everybody always says 10. Right, like you, you don't want to be out on the roads thinking that you're anything less than that. But, um, my tires would probably tell you differently, so I'm gonna say 9.75 if you could travel back in time, what period would you go to?

Kate Matthews:

well, you're right, this is fun gosh, I don't even know. Um, probably I don't want to be like completely eaten by dinosaurs or anything, but way back when, when maybe there was no predators and I could just suss like some really sexy natural environments, I think that would be really cool and what's the place you most want to travel to.

Kate Matthews:

I guess I don't know I have like a lot of places on my list that I like get there before global warming gets there. So, like Borneo rainforest would be amazing. Like Canada checking out those permafrost soils Ooh, yummy. Or, you know, antarctica, anything like that. I think all of them, I think the places I want to go are natural, beautiful, gorgeous, biodiverse places.

Melissa Martin:

And what was your favorite childhood TV show?

Kate Matthews:

I was a Nickelodeon girlie, though Thanks Shout out to my dad for getting Foxtel. So I I really liked SpongeBob SquarePants, which I recently talked to my Colombian friend about that I met um while I've been studying here and in um Latin America they call them spongy bomb. Wait, spongha pantalones quadrados or something like that.

Melissa Martin:

it's really cool and the last question what is your favorite season? Summer, all the way. And that is the end of our rapid fire round. Thank you. Now we're going to jump into a bit of soil basics. Just to brush our listeners and ourselves up on the topic. I really will start with a really basic question what is soil.

Kate Matthews:

So glad you asked. First of all, soil is a living system made up of several components and several complex systems happening all at the same time, and that includes things like minerals, of course, and organic matter, gassids, liquids, chemical reactions, redox and, of course, countless organisms all hanging out in this. Organisms all all hanging out in this. Um, if you do have a soil, there's got to be like a living component to it and like, say, if we want to compare something like soil and dirt, yeah, soil is, the is generally considered to be living what is the main purpose of soil on earth?

Kate Matthews:

Oh, so many Soil. I could talk about this all the day. Soil is fundamental to all terrestrial life, right, it's underpinning everything, and that includes it is a huge storage for biodiversity. So in fact, soil holds nearly 60% of all biodiversity on earth. Isn't that just a crazy statistic? All of the biodiversity in the rainforest combined, you can find in the soil, and you know it's often historically been where we found a lot of our antibiotics like penicillin and streptomycin, so it's like a huge source of biodiversity that we should be looking after.

Kate Matthews:

It is also responsible for nutrient cycling, so decomposition, making nutrients available for plants and whatnot Things like water storage and purification and air purification as well, of course, a medium for plants to grow in. And I'd say, arguably one of the most important factors is that it is a huge regulator of our climate. So carbon stores over two-thirds of all the world's carbon again, more than all carbon in the biomass of plants Crazy. And importantly, the soil can store carbon in forms like soil organic matter, which are less likely to be broken down, so we can consider them like a stable kind of sink which stops them from being released into the atmosphere. So there's really endless amounts of functions that our soils are providing for us.

Melissa Martin:

And for maybe our listeners, who maybe haven't thought that much about soil in their lives so far, besides the fact maybe when they plant a tree, because you mentioned earlier about when you studied it it wasn't really top of mind and I guess that one lecturer supervisor made it top of mind why do you think it's so overlooked in maybe people's general lives to really think about the soil they're working on? They think about trees, they think about plants, but not the actual soil?

Kate Matthews:

Look for people who don't think about soil very often. What are you doing? It's literally a part of your daily life. Come on now. But I get it. I didn't really think about it either, and soil isn't very charismatic. It's not, you know. It's not flowering and beautiful like a plant or moving about like an animal. And I think you know when you do go out into the environment, those are the features that you're looking for, at least for a lot of the ecologists I know anyway, and people who aren't ecologists who enjoy spending time in nature. So I think it's easy to be overlooked. It's like the silent. I mean it is silent because it's soil. Actually, some of my colleagues would probably disagree with that, but it's not really jumping out at you. It's the behind-the-scenes work.

Melissa Martin:

And how is it made, how does it appear and how does that happen?

Kate Matthews:

Soil forms through complex processes that take place on scales of thousands to millions of years, right, so it's through things like weathering and breaking down of rocks and accumulation of organic matter, and, of course, there are things like climate and topography and what's living in your soil that can also impact the formation of soil. What's living in your soil that can also impact the formation of soil. And so, when it comes to Australian soils, where our soils are very, very cool in that Australian like in a geological sense, has been stable for millions of years, and so our parent material, the rocks from which the soil has been formed, is also very old, which makes makes our soils very, very old, and it's why we have some of the most oligotrophic soils in the whole world, which is a fancy word to mean that they're very low in nutrients, and that's just because they've been there a long time and a lot of those nutrients have been leached out of the soil. Is that a good thing or a bad?

Kate Matthews:

thing, it depends who you are. If you are a farmer and you want to plant a nice yield-producing crop, then not so much, but yeah, soils are fit for what they're doing. So if you're in the desert and you've got a desert system, then if you're going to add nutrients to that, that's not very good for that system.

Melissa Martin:

So let's talk a little bit about terminology. I feel like maybe to many people, they all think it's the same thing when we say soil, dirt, mud. What are all these different terms and why are they different terms? And I guess, what's the difference between them and does it matter? I?

Kate Matthews:

don't think it does matter. I think it really depends on who you're talking to, uh, and if you were to say dirt to some soil scientists, they would be like oh, what are you talking about? Uh? And I have on occasion been known to say dirt is inert, in that it's not doing the same beautiful functions as a in-place intact soil. However, that's not necessarily true either, because even when soil is displaced as dirt, so it still has, um, you know, things going on in it. So it's not. It's not a huge difference, but I will say that mud is basically wet dirt.

Melissa Martin:

That's the difference there. Yeah, can you explain just the role that soil plays in supporting environmental microbiota and human health?

Kate Matthews:

We'll put a little disclaimer out there that I am a soil ecologist and I do not specialise in the human health side of things. But, as we'll go into later, I have done a little bit of research in that area. But environmental microbiota are the microbes like bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, and they're found in our environment. So that could be the soil, that could be air, water in our homes surfaces. We're consistently being exposed to them in our environment and we have been for millions of years right them in our environment and we have been for millions of years right and so, as a result of this co-evolution, we are now actually dependent on those microbes and they help to develop our immune systems, especially when we're children. So, like an ecosystem with the birds and the bees and the trees, we have our own ecosystems on our body in terms of our own microbiomes, and that kind of can be understood in the same way where by a more biodiverse microbiome on your skin is going to be healthier for you and potentially more resilient to disturbances like pathogens and viruses and whatnot. So if you are exposed to that and you have a biodiverse microbiome on your skin, you're going to have a higher likelihood of having a taxa on you that can fight off that disturbance of having a taxa on you that can fight off that disturbance.

Kate Matthews:

So in the I think it was the 1980s there was this idea of the hygiene hypothesis was introduced, whereby some dude he kind of linked the idea that our environments are impacting our immune system, immune health and immune responses, and so whereby if I'm, say, living in an urban environment and maybe my parents love to clean or they never let me leave the house, which is probably illegal and you shouldn't do that, but let's just say they do I would grow up with less exposure to these diverse sources of environmental microbiota. And then when I was finally ready to enter the world, perhaps my body was not ready to fight off the potential pathogens and viruses that are then I'm being exposed to. So yeah, that's just one hypothesis to explain why we have a higher prevalence of things like autoimmune disease and things like allergy and asthma and hay fever is because we are just intrinsically connected to our environment and our health is too by the microbes we're exposed to.

Melissa Martin:

Are we saying that based on, like people living more in an urban area and maybe having less access to food soil, they might be developing certain health concerns because of their lack of contact with it?

Kate Matthews:

Yes, potentially it is, but a hypothesis, and I think there is more and more supporting evidence of the idea. And I do say lack of contact with soil, but it's just general sources of environmental microbiota and of course soil is a really important factor of that. Like I said before, it's got our largest sink of biodiversity on Earth, and so by being in contact with soil you can get that. So by being in contact with soil you can get that, and actually one teaspoon of soil can contain up to one billion bacteria in it, which is just absolutely nuts. But it also means other areas, other sources of environmental microbiota too, and that might be through plants and biodiversity and whatnot in your area and biodiversity and whatnot.

Melissa Martin:

in your area Is there a general sentiment that we need to improve the soil health in general, urban areas or metropolitan?

Kate Matthews:

Adelaide. I mean, yes, right, a lot of our communities, a lot of our people are concentrated in metropolitan and urban areas, right, and so when we have built these cities and built these roads and places to live, we're knocking down, we're mowing down our native biodiversity and those sources of environmental microbiota, and that's generally considered like a homogenization of the environment, right, it's becoming more similar to each other, and so there is this understanding that we need to reintroduce some of those sources of diversity back into our cities, because we are seeing these potential side effects of autoimmune disease and such, so that we can live healthier lives in areas, green spaces and natural areas within our cities. And that's not just for those microbial health improvements but is also important for our physiological health, like going for a walk and seeing something green and our brains go, oh, that's nice, isn't it? So it's also, yeah, our physical and mental health. It's all around just very important.

Melissa Martin:

Now we'll jump into your research that you were involved with about designing healthier cities with good bacteria. Can you talk us through the research and how it's related to soil and what you were researching and, I guess, what you found?

Kate Matthews:

So this is a multidisciplinary collaboration, and so we looked at yeah, on my side and my supervisor's side, we covered the environmental microbes in the soil, and then we also looked at, yeah, the impact on human health and landscape architecture and how they're all in there, and we essentially wrote a review of how these three fields work together. In urban spaces, there's been some awesome experiments around nature plagues in childcare, and so there was this one study where they had a sand pit and they enriched it with microbes and then they had a control one and they had the kids playing it for a couple of weeks and see what that did to their microbiomes on their skin, and it actually changed their microbiomes and, upon doing blood tests, it actually significantly changed the concentration of, like, different immune response markers in their blood. So, yeah, it was kind of like this pulling together all this information from these different sides of all of our fields, because we know that we can't study these things independently from each other.

Melissa Martin:

Uh, and it was, yeah, it was really nice collaboration, yeah so with that example that you said, um, with the kids in the sand pits, did they find from that research that the kids that were playing in the sand pit with more microbiomes like a different effect on how sick they got or if they got sick, or like what effect on their health that kind of was?

Kate Matthews:

Not so much. It was more of like a short-term study. There have been other studies where they've researched children that have been raised in rural environments versus urban environments and that predisposition to things like asthma and hay fever, and they have found that it reduces the prevalence of allergies and such like that. But yeah, it's kind of like step by step tying it all together. So we're like being in the environment does change our microbes and then we know that microbes are so intrinsically linked to other things in different ways. But it's we're still kind of it's a black box and so we're still kind of trying to unravel that.

Kate Matthews:

And I'm not suggesting that everyone should go out and play in a sandpit, although it probably wouldn't hurt, but there are other ways of changing your microbiome and that might look like going for a walk, but it is. Also there's been. There was a study that looked at putting green walls into office spaces and so you can just be in an office with a green wall, like a wall of plants, and still have that change in microbiota on your skin just from being in the room, not even touching it, which is, yes, just so interesting.

Melissa Martin:

What role does thoughtful urban design play in improving the outcomes related to microbe exposure? And I guess what in the way we design our cities so people have more access to it? Is there any, I guess, direction in that space?

Kate Matthews:

Yeah, I guess it, like any kind of field, it needs more research.

Kate Matthews:

But there and I'll probably come at it in a way that is very biased, because I am quite fond of soil but there are always directions that we can go and, and I guess for me, the big uh things that came out of it for like, in terms of like accessibility and what we can do, like intentionally, to see if these things are good for our health, and even if we don't know the little mechanisms that are making it better, we're still kind of implementing it.

Kate Matthews:

So it's things like accessibility to green spaces and making sure there's green spaces in your area. So the World Health Organization recommends that urban residents should have at least one public green space within half a hectare, so of half a hectare within 300 meters of your home, and that's approximately like a five minute walk. And so you are not only reaping the benefits of the microb of lawn, but also some shrubs and some forbs and some annuals and perennials, because those are increasing the amount of microbes that are in the area. And maybe that's something I skipped over a little bit before is that microbes are very yeah, they know what they like right, and so you have a diverse array of plants. You're going to have more diversity of microbes.

Melissa Martin:

Because those microbes are different, have the differential kind of attraction to the, the environments that those plants create and so should parents be encouraging their kids to play in soil and, like I mentioned just your sand example before, like, is that what we should be doing is encouraging our kids to get in the mud and, you know, make sure you get some microbiomes on your skin, because I don't want you to get asthma. Is that what we should be doing?

Kate Matthews:

Disclaimer probably, probably, yes. I would say it definitely won't hurt. And even if it's not, you know, even if your kid still gets asthma or is still allergic to peanuts, it's definitely going to help in many different other ways.

Melissa Martin:

How can we reintroduce microbiome exposures into urban settings when it has been lost? Is it just the process of getting rid of the concrete and putting down soil and making plants? Is that all it is, or is it more than that?

Kate Matthews:

I mean, yeah, it's essentially that, Brett. It's making our urban spaces a little bit more wild and heterogeneous, a little bit more diverse. Yeah, and yeah, that could look like removing some of the concrete, uh, but it could also look like having more community gardens and more public spaces to meet in. It could look like, yeah, more nature play and sand pits. It could look like, um, beautiful places to go for walks and accessibility to those places, right, like public transport and walking distance and whatnot. Yeah, it could look like planting around places of high traffic.

Kate Matthews:

You know where you're walking around. Maybe that's a bus stop and so you're on your way to work. You actually don't have to change your behavior in any way. You still go to work, you still get on the bus, but while you're at the bus stop, you're in an area, uh, where there's lots of beautiful plants and maybe that's good for your mental health and your own microbiome, you know, like there's just, yeah, it's just making our environments a little bit more wild. Get rid rid of the grass. I say Bloody hate the grass.

Melissa Martin:

You know, into the tree pond, not the tree pond, the grass pond, the grass pond stuff.

Kate Matthews:

No, Maybe in another time in my life, but now I just say it as this leech. You know I have to water it, have to feed it. Bloody hell, Get rid of it.

Melissa Martin:

What is your favorite thing about soil? Sandy loam that stuff is magic really is?

Kate Matthews:

I don't think. I don't think. Uh, you understand how good it is to just grab a bit of soil, maybe, add a little water, make a little mud ball we call them a bolus in soil science Just have a play. Oh my God, it sounds ridiculous. It's just so good and you're like, wow, there is so much going on in this little bit of soil I have in my hands. It's just amazing and I think the thing that I kind of love about it the most is, you know, I've done the whole ecology thing and trees and plants and birds and trees are plants and whatever right, and soil is just that. But you've got thousands and thousands and millions of more taxa and interactions and things going on. It is just this black box of ecosystem interactions and I just think that is so fascinating. I mean, it definitely makes it a lot more harder to study, but it means that these overarching principles can be also applied in so many places in the world and I think that's really bloody cool.

Melissa Martin:

Last question before I let you go For our listeners who are new to the environment sector or thinking about getting into the environment sector in South Australia. What's one learning from your career so far that you wish you knew when you started?

Kate Matthews:

I wish I knew that opportunities were one email away. You know, I think I spent a lot of time when I was a bit younger feeling very anxious to reach out, but once I did, the doors just opened uh to me in so many different ways. And you don't have to want to work in the environmental sector forever to experience it know. There are so many opportunities for things like volunteering. Through my volunteering I've been able to do like frog surveys, tadpole surveys, bird surveys, bilby surveys, up in Arid Recovery I've done plant surveys. You know, and it's not necessarily even about the experience, it's just being able to go outdoors and experience what our natural systems have to offer. It's great advice and it's like you know.

Melissa Martin:

If they said no like, is that that's the worst case. Who cares? They should know you're not living in regret.

Kate Matthews:

You're going to hear the word no a lot in your life, so may as well get used to it.

Melissa Martin:

Thank you so much, Kate, for your time today. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Kate Matthews:

Thank you for letting me talk your ear off about soils and soil microbes.

Melissa Martin:

We are at the end of this episode of the Green Unlaid podcast. Thank you to our special guests for teaching us all about soil and why it's not just dirt Kate Matthews from Flinders University. This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land and I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the land. The Green Adelaide podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. I'm your host, melissa Martin, remember. Subscribe to our podcast for new episode alerts. I'll catch you for our next step next month. Bye.