Dr Martin Bidartondo

Global Science Update & the Effects of Excess Nitrogen on Soil Fungi & Tree Health

10:10

Martin has been a scientist for over 20 years, first at the University of California at Berkeley, and then at Imperial College and Kew Gardens. He works on the ecology and evolution of plant-fungal interactions, and this talk will focus on his studies over the last ten years examining forests below ground across Europe.  He has been part of unearthing the effects of  nitrogen pollution on forest mycorrhizas and exploring the ancient, globally wide-spread symbioses between lineages of plants and fungi.  Read more here.

We are really pleased to be joined by someone with such experience and understanding of the worlds of fungi and forests.  It is also fascinating for us to hear about the networks of scientific researchers, across the world, from a vast range of different subjects who come together to understand and support the living world.  Martin is also a part of the Imperial College based Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment group working with natural and social sciences, engineering, economists and policy makers.

He is a colleague of Dr David Read who joined us in 2017 to explain his research in collating Combating Climate Change: A Role for UK Forests.  If you haven’t read it, you can quickly see a summary of the whole document in this online PDF Synthesis of Combating Climate Change: A Role for UK Forests.  We’d draw you’re attention to the maps of potential climate change predictions and their effects on native trees towards the end.

This will be my first Tree Conference, so I look forward to learning from the diverse range of speakers and participants, all involved in making positive changes to our environments around the world.

Lactarious Quietus with Oak