Description of research and teaching

Research

I am the senior researcher in the Mycorrhizal interactions group studying mycorrhizosphere functions and interactions. My research is targeted at aspects of development and function of mycorrhizas and mycorrhizospheres. One major research theme during my career has been to get basic information of the types and functions of microbial populations associating with different parts of mycorrhizospheres at different conditions. Functions of mycorrhizospheres, particularly external mycelium, in nutrient release, uptake and translocation have been my long term interests.

Currently we are concentrating on the genomics and functions of the fungus associating archaea in the boreal forest soils. We are also involved in more applied projects about boreal nursery practices and tropical agroforestry as well as nitrogen translocations and transformations in mycorrhizospheres.

Teaching

I give courses on environmental microbiology, fungal biology, plant microbe interactions and mycorrhizal interactions. My teaching encompasses lectures, seminars, laboratory teaching, field courses and supervising of different level theses projects. Microbes for me include archaea, bacteria, fungi and also other types of small eukaryotes.