Profile

Career

 

2010	Commander of the Order of the British Empire
2005	Elected Fellow of the Royal Society
2004 - 2010	Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research	University of York
1997 - 2004	Head of Department	Department of Biology, University of York
1992 -	Professor	Department of Biology, University of York
1988 - 1992	Senior Lecturer	Department of Biology, University of York
1972 - 1988	Lecturer	Department of Biology, University of York
1972	PhD	University of Liverpool
1969	BA	University of Oxford

Research

Overview

The lab's work focuses on plant and microbial behaviour in a changing world, including belowground ecology and functional ecology of roots and mycorrhizal symbioses; carbon cycling in soil especially in relation to mycorrhizas; phenological responses to climate change.

Discoveries

Mycorrhizal fungi exhibit great functional diversity with the greatest selection pressures acting on the external mycelium in soil, rather than on the mycelium that interacts with the plant within the root. Consequently, the management and conservation of these key soil microbes requires an understanding of their fundamental ecology.

Current projects

• The diversity of natural communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: niche or neutral model? (Funding body: NERC)
• Mycorrhizal community dynamics under elevated CO2 (Funding body: BBSRC)
• Ecological Flora Project ( Funding body: BES)
  

Research group(s)

Status	Name	Project
Post doctoral fellow	Alex Dumbrell	Diversity of natural communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
Student	Michele Pignataro	Are mycorrhizal communities predictable?
Student	Joanna Banasiak	Diversity and host specificity of mycorrhizal communities
Student	Anne Cotton	Mycorrhizal community dynamics under elevated CO2

Publications

Selected publications

Helgason T, Merryweather JW, Young JPW and Fitter AH (2007) Specificity and resilience in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi of a natural woodland community Journal of Ecology 95: 623 – 630

Hawkes CV, Hartley IP, Ineson P and Fitter AH (2008) Soil temperature affects carbon allocation within arbuscular mycorrhizal networks and carbon transport from plant to fungus Global Change Biology 14: 1-10

Leight J, Hodge A, Fitter AH (2009) Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can transfer substantial amounts of nitrogen to their host plant from organic material. New Phytologist 181: 199-207

External activities

Memberships

• Grant panels: Chair Royal Society International Joint Project Grants Committee
• Member of Council of the Royal Society
• Member of Council of Natural Environment Research Council
• Member of Natural England Science Advisory Council

Editorial duties

• New Phytologist (Editor and Trustee)