New member of staff – Karolina Maria Jörgensen

Foto: privat

I have recently joined Vigdis Vandvik and the Between the Fjords group as a postdoctoral research fellow in the FUNDER project. Before moving to Bergen, I did a PhD in soil science with specialization in soil biology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. The main objective of my PhD was to investigate whether the effects of increased nitrogen availability affected ectomycorrhizal fungi in boreal forests differently depending on whether the nitrogen was endogenous or anthropogenic (supplied through atmospheric deposition or fertilization). I’m interested in how fungi take part in ecosystem processes and regulate nutrient cycling and carbon storage in the soil.

The FUNDER project aims at understanding the impact of climate and plant functional types on the plant soil food web in semi-natural grasslands. To do this, we use an established plant functional type-removal experiment in the Vestland climate grid (https://betweenthefjords.w.uib.no/vestland-climate-grid/). In the project, I will continue my work on fungal communities but also investigate the role of prokaryotes in the soil food web. I will combine taxonomical annotations of the communities with data on e.g. decomposition rates and enzymatic activities to better understand the roles of these organismal groups in ecosystem functioning and their interactions within the plant-soil food web.

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