Our research expertise

Our researchers specialise in a range of areas that complement one another and lead to research that will change how we manage land, grow crops sustainably and protect our environment.

You can find out more about our research expertise via the list below, or alternatively, get in touch with the area contacts.

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  Ecosystem processes

  Our work quantifies the biological processes undertaken in soils. Soils are vast stores of carbon and there are increasing concerns that more of this carbon may be released into the atmosphere (as CO2) as a result of land-use or climate change. Moreover, other greenhouse gases (such as nitrous oxide (N2O)) are also produced in soils, and so we need to understand the factors that regulate the production of greenhouse gases from soils. We use cutting-edge mobile, portable and laboratory-based analysers to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from soils in response to land-management practices and environmental change. For example, we recently showed that grassland biodiversity restoration increases resistance of carbon fluxes from soil to drought.

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  Mycorrhizal fungal ecology

  Most terrestrial plants have coevolved with mycorrhizal fungi on their roots, this symbiotic relationship enables plants to efficiently acquire nutrients from the soil and is essential for sustaining plant communities. Our work focuses on understanding how mycorrhizal plants and fungi interact to exchange nutrients and other molecules, the role of mycorrhizal fungi in sustaining ecosystems (including forests, heathlands, grasslands and many agricultural systems), and quantifying the diversity of mycorrhizal fungi across different scales under contrasting environmental conditions. Specifically, a recent focus of our work is on understanding the consequences of genotypic and species diversity of mycorrhizal fungi for regulating ecosystem processes, including the discovery that plant host identity and environmental conditions strongly influence ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity. Our work uses cutting-edge molecular and isotopic techniques alongside classical methods in highly controlled experimental systems through to large scale forest plots. You can hear Dr Filipa Cox discussing her recent UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Professor David Johnson talking about fungi to Melvyn Bragg for In our Time on BBC Radio 4.

  Listen to In our Time on BBC Radio 4

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  Plant-soil interactions

  Most land plants are critically dependent on interactions with soils, where the soil properties and functions likely reflect the properties of the plants they support. Plants interact with a vast array of organisms in soils - which can be either beneficial or harmful - as well as huge range of chemical and physical properties. Our work pioneers our understanding of the significance of plant-soil interactions and how they shape ecosystem processes, and we disentangle the key features of plants that regulate these processes. Much of our work increases our understanding of how properties (=traits) of plants provide resilience against major perturbations such as drought. Our recent work, as part of the Soil Security Programme, used stable isotopes to show how drought reduces incorporation of recent plant photosynthate into soil food webs. A key tool used in our group is the quantification of "plant-soil feedback", and we have discovered the importance of plant-soil feedback as a regulator of plant diversity in hyperdiverse subtropical forests, and the susceptibility of this mechanism to drought in species-rich grassland.

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  Soil ecology

  Soil is essential for humanity's existence on earth so it is important that we understand how different soils function. Our research explores this and how soils provide the numerous ecosystem services that we rely on. A key focus of our work is on soil biology; soils are vast reservoirs of biodiversity playing home to bacteria, fungi, archaea and myriad invertebrates. We use molecular, biochemical and microscopic tools to test how environmental and anthropogenic factors regulate soil biodiversity. Some of our recent discoveries show that soil bacterial networks are more susceptible to drought than fungal networks, and that shifts in plant cover and soil acidification during ecosystem development are associated with changes in below-ground biodiversity over time. Our work typically involves combines data on soil physical, chemical and biological properties in ecosystems across the globe including tropical rainforests, arctic tundra, boreal forests, grasslands and peatlands. Watch our short YouTube video to find out more.

  Watch the YouTube video

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  Sustainable agriculture

  We have over 20 years' experience working on grasslands, which are the mainstay of the global livestock industry. With this experience we develop and apply methods for sustainable agriculture and forestry practices. We use management and restoration techniques to increase diversity of plants alongside soil carbon pools, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We also investigate how mycorrhizal fungi can be used to enhance crop production including the part they play in changing how plants interact with above-ground pests such as aphids, and even their ability to facilitate inter-plant transfer of pest warning signals.