Understanding and managing urban ectomycorrhizal fungi communities to increase the health and ecosystem service provisioning of urban trees (URBANMYCOSERVE)

The first general objective of the URBANMYCOSERVE project is to understand the environmental drivers of the Ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi community composition and the EcM fungi functional diversity of urban trees, and of their role in mediating tree physiology, tree health and (the resilience of) tree ecosystem service provisioning. The second general objective of URBANMYCOSERVE is to explore the possibility of active management of the EcM-community of urban trees, through their inoculation with dedicated EcM-mixtures. We will select two model tree species in each of three different EU cities, covering a N-S gradient (Leuven (B); Porto (P) and Strasbourg (F)).