Steve Kwatcho Kengdo

BG Biogeosciences

The 2022 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Steve Kwatcho Kengdo for the poster/PICO entitled:

Long-term soil warming alters fine root dynamics and morphology, and their ectomycorrhizal fungal community in a temperate forest soil (Kwatcho Kengdo, S.; Peršoh, D.; Schindlbacher, A.; Heinzle, J.; Tian, Y.; Wanek, W.; Borken, W.;)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Steve Kwatcho Kengdo is a Ph.D. candidate at the Soil Ecology Department (BayCEER) at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Werner Borken. His research focuses on the effects of climate warming on tree fine root dynamics and soil organic carbon turnover in a temperate mountain forest. His work is part of the Achenkirch soil warming experiment in the Austrian Alps, which combine the expertise of researchers from the Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape (BFW), the University of Vienna (TER Labs), the University of Bochum and the University of Bayreuth.
The awarded presentation showed the response of fine roots (fine root biomass, fine root production, and fine root morphology) and their ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungal and root-associated bacterial communities to soil warming by + 4°C in a mixed spruce-beech forest in the Austrian Limestone Alps after 8 and 14 years of soil warming, respectively.