Biography：

Professor Yuri Mazei is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and serves as Vice-president for International Affairs at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He earned his Ph.D. (2002) and Doctor of Science/Dr.-Habil. (2008) at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He was appointed full professor at Penza State University (2010), Lomonosov Moscow State University (2015) and Shenzhen MSU-BIT University (2021).

An internationally recognized expert in palaeoecology and microbial ecology, Professor Mazei’s research focuses on reconstructing past climate and ecosystem dynamics through analysis of peat and lake sediments, as well as on the taxonomy, distribution, and functional roles of free-living microbial eukaryotes. He has developed novel transfer functions for peatland hydrology reconstructions, elucidated global moisture trends in high-latitude peatlands, and pioneered analyses of testate amoebae and other protists in terrestrial and freshwater environments. His work integrates multiproxy palaeoecological methods with functional trait approaches to inform models of ecosystem resilience under climate change.

He is the author of over 230 peer-reviewed publications with more than 5 500 citations (Google Scholar), appearing in leading international journals such as Nature Geoscience, Nature Communications, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Global Change Biology, Quaternary Science Reviews, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Ecology, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, iMeta, mSystems and others.

Professor Mazei has been awarded the Honorary Certificate of the President of the Russian Federation, is a Chevalier des Palmes académiques (France), recipient of the Helen Tappan Award from the International Society for Testate Amoeba Research, Editor-in-Chief of the Russian Journal of Ecosystem Ecology, and Deputy Editor of Protistology.

He has held visiting appointments at leading institutions in Europe and North Amerika – including the University of Padova (Italy), the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), the Natural History Museum (London, UK) and the University of British Columbia (Canada) – and in China at Ocean University of China (Qingdao), Peking University, the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan), the Institute of Urban Environment (Wuhan), North-East Normal University (Changchun), Xiamen University.

Abstract：

This lecture examines the pivotal role of eukaryotic microbial (protist) communities in terrestrial ecosystems and their responses to climate change through a palaeoecological lens.

Key topics include the following:

Palaeoecological reconstruction methods for tracing protist community structure and function over millennial timescales;

Impacts of past climatic shifts (Holocene Climate Optimum, Little Ice Age, and recent warming trends) on soil and freshwater microbial diversity

Microbial regulation of ecosystem processes, including carbon decomposition, nitrogen mineralization, and greenhouse gas fluxes

Integration of palaeoecological data into predictive models to assess ecosystem resilience under anthropogenic climate change

Applied perspectives – evaluating landscape carbon budgets, guiding restoration of degraded ecosystems, and developing adaptation strategies informed by long-term ecological trends

By combining deep‐time insights with modern ecological challenges, this lecture will offer a comprehensive framework for understanding how microbial dynamics shape – and are shaped by – climate change.