My main research interests are trophic interactions in invertebrates within forest soil food webs and factors driving their variations. Investigating soil food webs and trophic interactions of soil animals poses a great challenge as the soil system is opaque. I use time-integrated indirect techniques, such as stable isotope and fatty acid analyses, to disentangle trophic structures in soil. Furthermore, I am interested in the role soil invertebrates play in different ecosystem functions and in consequences of their loss or introduction. In the ERC-funded project ECOWORM, we study the effects of exotic earthworm species on different ecosystem functions in North America. Being further postdoc and coordinator of a recently established tree diversity experiment, where in addition to tree diversity mycorrhizal types of tree communities were manipulated (MyDiv), my focus is further on the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship in trees and how arbuscular and ectomycorrhiza may drive them, especially within the belowground system. I am also interested in the role mycorrhizae play as food resource and how soil food web structure differs in tree communities with different mycorrhizal types.

Fields of work:

• Utilisation of carbon resources by different soil predator and decomposer taxa
• Trophic niches of coexisting soil animal species
• Channeling of energy and nutrients through the soil food web
• Earthworm invasions and ecology
• Effects of earthworms on ecosystem functioning
• Tree diversity experiments
• Mycorrhiza

Methods

• Fatty acid analyses in invertebrates (NLFAs) and soil (PLFAs)
• 13C and 15N stable isotope analysis
• 13C compound-specific stable isotope analysis
• Soil animal extraction methods