Elsa Abs
I am a CNRS researcher based at the Laboratory for Sciences of Climate and Environment (LSCE) near Paris, where I am currently leading the ERC Starting Grant project "GAMEchange".
I hold a Ph.D. in Mathematical Ecology and Evolution from Sorbonne University, an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Biology from the Ecole Normale Superieure of Ulm, and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food, and Environmental Sciences.
As a Frontiers in Life Sciences' fellow, I worked with Prof. Regis Ferriere at l'Ecole Normale Superieure of Ulm, and Prof. Scott Saleska at the University of Arizona in the US. As a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow, I worked with Prof. Steve Allison at the University of California, Irvine, and Dr. Philippe Ciais at LSCE.
news
Jan 8, 2026 The GAMEchange team will be visiting the Allison lab this winter quarter and will be organizing its first
project workshop on January 30.
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Dec 19, 2025 New paper out here in Ecology Letters!
In this study, we review eco-evolutionary optimality frameworks for soil organic matter models.
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Oct 1, 2025 I'm thrilled to share that I have started a permanent research position as Chargée de Recherche (CR) at
the CNRS.
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Jun 19, 2025 New paper out here in Global Change Biology !
In this research article, we integrate game theory into a soil carbon model and show that microbial
adaptation to warming could significantly amplify soil carbon losses by 2100.
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Dec 9-13, 2024 See you at AGU in Washington DC!
Come check out our 3 sessions: B33J, B34A, B31I on "Advancing Soil Carbon Predictions: From Micro to
Global Scale". Invited speakers: Christina Kaiser, Jackie Weissman, Katie Rocci and Will Wieder.
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Oct 16, 2024 New paper out here in Ecology Letters !
In this research article, we challenge the idea that "selection always leads to the same outcome,
regardless of the adaptive mechanism".
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Sep 13, 2024 New paper out here in Nature Communications !
In this review led by Xianjin He, we explore the various methods for estimating CUE across scales
and its impact on global soil carbon predictions.
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Sep 5, 2024 I'm super excited to share that I have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant for the GAMEchange project
to integrate microbial adaptation to climate change in land surface models.
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April 15-19, 2024 See you at EGU in Vienna!
Come check out our special session on the use of omics data in geoscience.
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April 1, 2024 New paper out here in Global Change Biology !
In this Opinion, we present a roadmap for updating Earth system models to account for evolution.
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March 31, 2024 Completion of the Marie Curie GLOBALECOEVO project, during which I investigated the adaptive
processes of microbial communities in response to climate change and their impact on the soil carbon
cycle.
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March 28, 2024 New paper out here!
In this Commentary, we ask the question "Why is the field of soil ecology not promoting more
solutions-oriented research?"
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March 6, 2024 New paper out here in Nature!
In this Matters Arising led by Xianjin He, in response to Tao et al 2023, we show that the effect of
CUE on SOC was amplified by the model structure.