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​PROJECTS
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Land-use intensification alters ecosystem functions in grasslands: insights from the soil fungal community (FORMAS)

​Global change is altering ecosystems worldwide and affecting groups such as soil fungi that are key drivers of many ecosystem services. Land-use intensification in grassland causes nitrogen (N) enrichment and loss of plant diversity and changes in plant functional composition. Despite advances in our understanding of some of these processes, little is known about how they jointly and interactively affect soil fungal communities and their functioning.
      The overall aim of this project is to characterize the response of the soil fungal community to these aspects of global change and its effects on important ecosystem functions and services. I will sample soil fungal communities in a unique field experiment that manipulates plant species richness and functional composition together with N addition and will determine the abundance and diversity of functional groups such as saprotrophs, pathogens and mycorrhizae. I will relate these data on different fungal functional groups with existing measures of forage quality, soil fertility, soil enzymatic activity and carbon storage. Finally, I will conduct additional greenhouse experiments, using soil collected from the field site, to determine how changes in the soil fungal community feedback to affect plant growth. This research will provide mechanistic insights into how poorly studied fungal groups respond to global change and affect function, which will contribute to the design of more sustainable grassland management systems.

​Impact of global change on phyllosphere microbiomes in grasslands (SNF)

​​ Dr Anne Kempel and I doing field work at the PaNDiV experimental site








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Grasslands are strongly affected by land-use intensification, either directly from an increase in plant growth following nitrogen (N) enrichment, or indirectly via plant diversity loss and changes in plant functional composition. However, we have no information on how these different aspects of global change affect the composition and diversity of phyllosphere microbial communities, and whether different functional groups of microbes are affected differently. Moreover, we know very little in general about the impact of these phyllosphere microbiomes on plant communities and we know nothing about how changes in phyllosphere diversity or composition affects plant growth and ecosystem functioning.The aim of this project is to increase our knowledge of how global change affects plant phyllosphere community structure, function and impact, and to elucidate the role of pathogen diversity as a driver of disease severity. To do so, we will develop the necessary methodology to characterize phyllosphere microbiomes of whole plant communities, using high-throughput sequencing, and will take advantage of a unique field experiment to determine how plant species richness, functional composition, N addition and fungicide application alter phyllosphere microbiomes. This will be the first attempt to assess the effects of global change drivers on phyllosphere fungal communities.
​In addition, we will use a new approach, the “plant-phyllosphere feedback approach“, which is an extension of the plant-soil feedback framework to aboveground microbiomes, to determine microbiome impact. Combined with high-throughput sequencing, this new experimental approach will allow us to conduct the first test of how phyllosphere fungal diversity affects plant productivity.The proposed project will enable us to better understand the importance of phyllosphere microbiomes in grasslands, and the mechanisms by which our ecosystems and their functioning are altered by global change, which is a pressing priority given global change scenarios and the drastic decline in biodiversity. Our research will have broad impacts on global change biology, biodiversity and sustainability research. It will enhance our ability to mitigate the negative effect of land-use intensity, and to foster a sustainable grassland management in a changing world.​

The effect of ecosystem engineers on ecosystem functioning

In Europe and particularly in Sweden, wild boar population have increased and its Scandinavian population is currently expanding northwards outside its preferred forest habitats. I have been using two approaches, one experimental simulating rooting at different intensities and another by sampling natural rooted areas and adjacent intact soil and vegetation.
The first phase of the experiment was to look at the impact of rooting on soil mesofauna.


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The effect of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition on the net carbon balance of boreal soils

​Since the 20th century anthropogenic activities has increased the nitrogen released into the atmosphere which may impact boreal forest and soils. The goal of this project is to explore the different mechanisms via which nitrogen deposition impacts upon soil carbon inputs and losses by assessing shifts in the aboveground litter quality and quantity, litter decomposition, soil respiration and the microbial community structure and biomass (e.g., ectomycorrhizal fungi).