Research interests

My overall research interest is to incorporate detailed knowledge of fungal communities and their functioning into an ecosystem framework - particularly in relation to carbon balance and climate change in Arctic and Boreal biomes.

I have a background in plant ecological research and defended my PhD thesis on ‘Ectomycorrhiza and Arctic Ecosystem Response to Global Change’ at University of Copenhagen in October 2006. I came to Uppsala in March 2008 to work as a Marie Curie Fellow for two years, and I am currently continuing my work here as an internally funded postdoc.

Current projects

• Tree-fungi-soil interactions in the subarctic-alpine forest-heath ecotone
• Fungal successions in a long-term boreal forest chronosequence

Other research collaborations concern

• The bioinformatics pipeline SCATA – Sequence Clustering and Analysis of Tagged Amplicons
• The development of new fungal-specific ITS primers
• Fungal peroxidases involved in the decomposition of recalcitrant organic matter in boreal forest ecosystems (PhD project by Inga Bödeker)
• Competition between the mycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungal communities of boreal forest soils (PhD project by Erica Sterkenburg)
• Nitrogen form preferences in mycorrhizal mycelial communities in a N deposition gradient using 15N-labeled substrate mixtures
• The use of natural abundance of stable isotopes to assess nutrient and carbon cycling through mycorrhizal fungi

Publications