I am a mycologist interested in the functioning of boreal ecosystems, especially in nutrient uptake by ectomycorrhizal fungi and their responses to nitrogen fertilisation.

Curriculum vitae

Publication list

Current research

I am currently working as a post doc in the project “Towards minimising the negative effects of forest fertilisation on ectomycorrhizal fungi” together with Professor Roger Finlay. This project is funded by FORMAS and is a collaboration with Dr Andy Taylor at The Macauley Institute in Aberdeen, UK.

The overall aim is to increase the understanding of consequences of nitrogen fertilisation to the biodiversity and functioning of ectomycorrhizal fungi. Many of these fungi are remarkably sensitive to changes in the environment. In particular, chronic and/or drastic increases in mineral nitrogen availability can cause drastic losses in species richness and substantially alter ectomycorrhizal community structure. In this project, we want to know how long it takes for the ectomycorrhizal community to recover from a fertilisation event.

We also want to determine how mineral nutrients are transported in the fungal hyphae and assess if nitrogen fertilisation affects the population structures of those fungi negatively affected by nitrogen additions. In addition, a deterministic model of how ectomycorrhizal communities react to nitrogen fertilisation will be developed in collaboration with Hans Liljenström at the Department of Energy and Technology, SLU.

Thesis

I defended my thesis Functional diversity in nutrient acquisition by ectomycorrhizal fungi in October 2008. A summary of my thesis can be downloaded as a pdf-file from the SLU library or as a popular science article in the journal Fakta Skog (in Swedish only).