Research

Kohout Lab primarily focuses on fungal ecology and biogeography. We try to understand the drivers behind fungal species distribution and how fungi will respond to various aspects of global change. Besides that, we aim to understand role of fungi and other microorganisms in ecosystem processes. Our work aim to create scientific fundaments to future ecosystem managements from local to global scales.

Fungal macroecology and biogeography

Fungi are eukaryotic microorganisms that play fundamental roles in regulating key ecosystem processes. As major decomposers of organic matter as well as mutualists or pathogens of plants, soil fungi significantly influence plant primary production, carbon mineralization and sequestration, and act as crucial regulators of the soil carbon balance. Even fungal species belonging to the same ecological guild, possess large differences in their traits and function. Therefore, understanding drivers behind global distribution of fungal species represents an important step for predictions of various fungal driven ecosystem processes.

Effects of global change factors on fungi

Soil fungi play indispensable roles in all ecosystems including the recycling of organic matter and interactions with plants, both as symbionts and pathogens. Previous observations and experimental manipulations indicate that projected global change effects, including the increase of CO₂ concentration, temperature, change of precipitation and nitrogen deposition, affect fungal species and communities. The plant-mutualistic fungal guilds – mycorrhizal fungi – appear to be especially responsive to global change factors with seemingly having the strongest adverse effect. In addition to abiotic factors, the distribution of fungal species is largely influenced by the human-induced introduction of non-native species into new habitats. The extent of these introductions of alien fungal species is still largely unknown. In our group, we particularly focus on the effect of climate change, wildfires and biological invasions on fungal species distribution.

Role of microorganisms in ecosystem processes

Besides focusing on drivers of fungal species distribution and predictions of distribution changes under various environmental scenarios, we also aim to determine role of fungi (together with other microbes) in various ecosystem processes and how the shifts in fungal communities, resulting from global changes, will affect ecosystems. To do so, we use various greenhouse and field experiments supplemented by metagenomic, metatrascriptomic and metabolomic methods.