François Maillard

Welcome to my website. I am François Maillard, a forest microbiologist and microbial ecologist. In 2018, I earned my Ph.D. in forest ecology from INRAE in France under the supervision of Marc Buée. Subsequently, I spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota, USA, mentored by Jonathan Schilling and Peter Kennedy. In 2022, I joined Lund University in Sweden to continue my research under the guidance of Dimitrios Floudas and Anders Tunlid. As of 2024, I have become a Principal Investigator at Lund University, independently leading research on the ecophysiology of forest fungi, focusing primarily on their roles in organic matter decomposition processes.

Fungi play a pivotal role in forests, serving as critical links between two essential ecosystem services—plant primary productivity and soil carbon sequestration. Therefore, understanding the fungal processes that drive forest ecosystem functioning, their impacts on forest functions and services, and their responses to climate change is crucial. My research focuses on identifying and characterizing these processes. To achieve this, I employ techniques from both microbial ecology and microbiology to identify key fungal species involved and unravel their genetic mechanisms. My methods include metabarcoding of microbial markers, genomics, and transcriptomics.

I also leverage hybrid techniques to create a more robust link between field and lab findings within a unified research framework. These techniques include metatranscriptomics, stable isotope probing of DNA, and soil microfluidic chips. By integrating these methodologies, I aim to identify key fungal-driven forest processes, the fungal taxa involved, their related genetic mechanisms, and their evolutionary history. Ultimately, incorporating these microbial insights should enhance biogeochemical models of forest carbon and nutrient cycles.