Michael Gundale is a professor of forest vegetation ecology since 1 mars 2020. His inauguration lecture has the title "The hidden gears that help us understand how forest ecosystems function".
Michael Gundale´s research investigates how forest plants interact with soils to influence a variety of ecosystem properties, including productivity, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. He incorporates several scientific disciplines into his research, including plant community ecology, biogeochemistry, and microbial ecology. He applies this basic knowledge of plant-soil interactions to understand how the functioning of forests will respond to global and regional change factors, such as climate change or exotic species arrivals. He further aims to provide new knowledge on forest functioning to improve how forest management impacts the ecosystem services that society values.
