Oak Ridge National Laboratory | weberse@ornl.gov | Curriculum Vitae | @sporen_weber | Google Scholar | Research Gate | ORCID

Dr. Sören Weber

botany/mycology/mycorrhizae/global change

I am an ecosystem ecologist interested primarily in the contributions of biotic interactions to ecosystem processes in the context of global change. My main interest lays in plants and mycorrhizal fungi. Through their exchange of resources via symbiosis, plants and mycorrhizal fungi partially drive the cycling of resources throughout ecosystems. Drivers of global change alter these resource cycles, in part through modifying these interactions by redistributing resources within and between ecosystems.

To this end I have worked in ecosystems ranging from managed European grasslands to arid shrublands and forested peatlands, testing hypotheses with observations along gradients to whole ecosystem field manipulations and applying radioisotopes to tightly controlled greenhouse mesocosm experiments. I have developed expertise in interactions between plants contextualized by an education in botany (sensu lato) and ecology more broadly. Doing so has forced me to develop robust analytical skills.

Currently, I am researching how root growth distributions in peatlands are responding to climate change (elevated CO2 and warming) in the SPRUCE experiment as a postdoctoral research associate with Dr. Colleen Iversen at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Peatlands are responsible for an immense amount of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems. Plant roots and their mycorrhizal fungi are in direct contact with this carbon, influencing carbon storage or release from these ecosystems.

During my PhD at the University of Zürich with Dr. Pascal Niklaus, I investigated the trade of carbon and phosphorus between plants and their arbuscular mycorrhizal partners. I manipulated the diversity and degree of contract between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in configurable microcosms, labeling their respective carbon and phosphorus with radioisotopes. This allowed me to create several scenarios to investigate how resource exchange shifted with the diversity (aka partner options!) of plants and AMF.