Anders Ynnerman to Head the strategic programs of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

The strategic programs are comprehensive investments in basic research and postgraduate education in areas that the Foundation considers to be of great importance for Sweden's development.

How do soil microbes affect climate change?

The soil is teeming with bacteria, fungi and other microbes… An ecosystem where nutrients get converted and carbon is stored or released into the atmosphere. One concern today is that as the Arctic environment gets warmer, there will be a shift where less carbon is stored in the ground and more is released into the atmosphere, at that point as carbon dioxide - the gas that contributes the most to the greenhouse effect and an increasingly hot planet. Through various experimental test sites in Abisko, in the Swedish mountains, Johannes Rousk, a professor at Lund University, is trying to understand how different types of warming affect the soil – whether it leads to increased carbon sequestration or if the soil releases more carbon into the atmosphere.