Understanding how fungal–plant partnerships shape biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems.
The first plants to colonise land formed symbiotic partnerships with fungi, relationships that helped plants establish in terrestrial environments. Today, most plant species still host fungal partners within their roots. These mycorrhizal fungi form diverse below-ground communities that influence plant nutrition, growth, and resilience, and play important roles in ecosystem processes.
Our research group studies the ecological factors that shape the diversity and community assembly of mycorrhizal fungi, and the consequences this has for plant hosts and ecosystems. To address these questions, we combine ecological theory, DNA-based approaches, and experimental plant biology.
One focus of our work is understanding the broad-scale drivers of fungal diversity and distribution. For example, we have documented the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi across Australia through the AusAMF database, examining how climate, soil properties, and vegetation influence where different fungi occur. We are now exploring opportunities to apply similar approaches across Sweden and Fennoscandia, where AM fungi remain comparatively understudied because boreal forests are largely dominated by plants that associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi.
At smaller ecological scales, our research examines how fungal communities assemble within plant roots. The fungi present in soils often differ from those that ultimately colonise plants, reflecting varying degrees of selectivity by both plants and fungi. We therefore investigate how factors such as plant identity, nutrient availability, herbivory, and pathogen pressure influence which fungi establish within roots and how these partnerships affect plant performance.
By combining biodiversity data, field studies, controlled experiments, and quantitative modelling, our goal is to better understand how mycorrhizal fungal communities assemble and how these ancient symbioses continue to shape plant communities and ecosystem functioning.
While most of the group is based at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, we also maintain active research collaborations in Australia through the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University.