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Sören Eliot Weber

I am primarily interested in the role of plant-microbe interactions redistributing resources among organisms and driving biogeochemical cycles at ecosystem, and ultimately earth system, scales in the context of global change. Understanding the ecosystem-level consequences of these plant-microbe interactions will enable sustainable land and resource management to mitigate drivers of global change and biodiversity loss.

I’m currently on the job market, looking primarily for faculty positions but I am open to other research-focused roles (staff scientist, government, NGO) where I can build a lab around my interests in plant-microbe interactions and biogeochemistry.

I take a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ approach to methods. I have a strong background using radio- and stable isotopes, plant and mycorrhizal fungal functional traits, fine-roots, and minirhizotrons. Analytically, I have extensive experience using linear mixed-effect models on messy ecological datasets, and I am now using process-based models to predict and analyze carbon and nutrient cycles at the ecosystem scale.

These are several of my favorite questions:

• How do eco-evolutionary dynamics of partner selection in the plant-AMF symbiosis generate patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning?

  • AMF diversity improves plant resource uptake across plant functional types

  • Plants receive more P when given ‘choice’ of AMF species

  • AMF acquire more C when given ‘choice’ of plant species (in prep.)

• How do soil biota and plants respond to (sometimes multiple) global change drivers?

  • Experimental warming, elevated CO₂, and lower water tables promote shrub root production and biomass more than trees and herbs (accepted June 2026 at Journal of Ecology, preprint link)¹

  • AMF show functional group specific responses to global change drivers^{1, 2}

  • Woody plant encroachment in the alpine dramatically alters the compositions of prokaryotes and fungi res^{1, 2 3}

  • Warming alters plant-soil feedbacks¹

• How do functional differences among mycorrhizal fungi and plants influence their interactions with each other and ecosystem processes?

  • AMF functional groups¹

  • Plant functional traits ^{1, 2, 3, 4}

  • Plant functional groups^1,2

Mycorrhizae ⋅ Biogeochemistry ⋅ Global Change