Emilia Hannula, assistant professor at Leiden University, guest researcher at Netherlands institute of Ecology
Background. I am a soil ecologist passionate about all soil creatures and especially soil fungi. Across ecosystems (arable soils, grasslands and recently also forests), I have worked on soil fungal communities and functions they provide. I am interested in both large scale patterns but also understanding the functioning of fungi, the effects of human influence on fungal communities and the interactions between plants and fungi.
This project: I joined in 2021 to provide expertise on the fungi and soil carbon cycling and to learn more about the forest management in the Netherlands. I am supervising and guiding a PhD student (Steven) in his quest to find out which fungi are relevant in soil carbon cycling in differently managed forest and how do they respond to and mitigate drought. To this end we have used rain-out shelters to induce drought conditions in soils in the forest experiment and evaluate the effects on soil fungi and carbon cycling. We will also in future use stable isotopes to track the fate of carbon taken up by trees when it moves to the soil.
Climate Smart Forestry 