Max Kerr Winter uses big data and machine learning to unravel the economics of underground fungal networks.
Underground fungal networks are a crucial yet poorly understood component of ecosystems worldwide. How fungi respond to rising temperatures is unclear, despite being an important question in the context of climate change. We know that mycorrhizal fungi facilitate the transport and trade of nutrients essential for plants (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) in exchange for carbon compounds needed by fungi. However, the chemical, physical, and ecological foundations of these trading strategies remain largely unknown.
To shed light on the functioning of underground fungal networks and understand how temperature changes affect this nutrient trade, Max Kerr Winter employs an innovative, big-data-driven approach to fungal science. By combining machine learning with cutting-edge microscopy, he aims to quantify the symbiotic trade and transport of nutrients within underground fungal networks across space and time, so as to better understand the role of fungi in rapidly warming ecosystems.
Max Kerr Winter (1992) completed his master’s in Physics at the University of Cambridge in 2014, and his PhD jointly at The Francis Crick Institute and University College London in 2021. He then conducted two and a half years of postdoctoral research at Eindhoven University of Technology. Currently, he is affiliated with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
