Dr Kevin Van Sundert (K.)

"Are terrestrial carbon cycle responses to climate change governed by soil properties and microbial symbionts?"

2023 - 2025, FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowship

"Effects of climate change and nutrient pollution on mycorrhizal abundance and diversity in globally distributed grasslands"

2023 - 2024, UAntwerp BOF Small Project

"Drought impact on carbon cycling: the role of soil"

2021 - 2023, Fulbright & Paul Vernel BAEF Postdoctoral Fellowships

"Interactions of nutrient and water availability in the G4M global forest model"

2021, IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program Fellowship

"Elucidating the role of nutrient availability and mycorrhizae in the drought response of terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling"

2017 - 2021, FWO PhD Fellowship

Hu, M., Chen, H. Y. H., Chang, S. X., Leuzinger, S., Dukes, J. S., Langley, J. A., Bader, M. K.-F., Van Sundert, K., Liao, H., & Ma, Z. (2025). Plant functional traits affect biomass responses to global change: A meta‐analysis. The Journal of Ecology, 1365-2745.70076. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.70076

Stocker, B. D., Dong, N., Perkowski, E. A., Schneider, P. D., Xu, H., de Boer, H. J., Rebel, K. T., Smith, N. G., Van Sundert, K., Wang, H., Jones, S. E., Prentice, I. C., & Harrison, S. P. (2025). Empirical evidence and theoretical understanding of ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycle interactions. The New Phytologist, 245(1), 49–68.

Asad, J., Van Sundert, K., Eljall Qüesta, A. V., Preliasco, P., & De Paepe, J. L. (2025). Late summer intensive grazing, an alternative to herbicide application in rangelands of the flooding Pampa. Rangeland Ecology & Management, 98, 9–17.

Cen, X., He, N., Van Sundert, K., Terrer, C., Yu, K., Li, M., Xu, L., He, L., & Butterbach-Bahl, K. (2025). Global patterns of nitrogen saturation in forests. One Earth (Cambridge, Mass.), 8(1), 101132.

Van Sundert, K., van Diggelen, R., D’Haese, J., Aggenbach, C. J. S., Dammers, E., Findeisen, S., Kotowski, W., Kozub, L., Kranenburg, R., van der Bij, A., & Emsens, W.-J. (2024). Phosphorus availability as the primary determinant of nutrient limitation in temperate biodiverse herbaceous vegetation. In bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.18.619065

Van Sundert, K., Leuzinger, S., Bader, M. K.-F., Chang, S. X., De Kauwe, M. G., Dukes, J. S., Langley, J. A., Ma, Z., Mariën, B., Reynaert, S., Ru, J., Song, J., Stocker, B., Terrer, C., Thoresen, J., Vanuytrecht, E., Wan, S., Yue, K., & Vicca, S. (2023). When things get MESI: The Manipulation Experiments Synthesis Initiative-A coordinated effort to synthesize terrestrial global change experiments. Global Change Biology, 29(7), 1922–1938.

Lasters, R., Van Sundert, K., Groffen, T., Buytaert, J., Eens, M., & Bervoets, L. (2023). Prediction of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in homegrown eggs: Insights into abiotic and biotic factors affecting bioavailability and derivation of potential remediation measures. Environment International, 181, 108300.

Ochoa-Hueso, R., Delgado-Baquerizo, M., Risch, A. C., Ashton, L., Augustine, D., Bélanger, N., Bridgham, S., Britton, A. J., Bruckman, V. J., Camarero, J. J., Cornelissen, G., Crawford, J. A., Dijkstra, F. A., Diochon, A., Earl, S., Edgerley, J., Epstein, H., Felton, A., Fortier, J., … Bremer, E. (2023). Bioavailability of macro and micronutrients across global topsoils: Main drivers and global change impacts. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 37(6). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022gb007680

Van Sundert, K., Arfin Khan, M. A. S., Bharath, S., Buckley, Y. M., Caldeira, M. C., Donohue, I., Dubbert, M., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Eskelinen, A., Finn, A., Gebauer, T., Haider, S., Hansart, A., Jentsch, A., Kübert, A., Nijs, I., Nock, C. A., Nogueira, C., … Vicca, S. (2021). Fertilized graminoids intensify negative drought effects on grassland productivity. Global Change Biology, 27(11), 2441–2457.

Terrer, C., Phillips, R. P., Hungate, B. A., Rosende, J., Pett-Ridge, J., Craig, M. E., van Groenigen, K. J., Keenan, T. F., Sulman, B. N., Stocker, B. D., Reich, P. B., Pellegrini, A. F. A., Pendall, E., Zhang, H., Evans, R. D., Carrillo, Y., Fisher, J. B., Van Sundert, K., Vicca, S., & Jackson, R. B. (2021). A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO. Nature, 591(7851), 599–603.

Van Sundert, K., Linder, S., Marshall, J. D., Nordin, A., & Vicca, S. (2021). Increased tree growth following long-term optimised fertiliser application indirectly alters soil properties in a boreal forest. European Journal of Forest Research, 140(1), 241–254.

Radujković, D., Verbruggen, E., Seabloom, E. W., Bahn, M., Biederman, L. A., Borer, E. T., Boughton, E. H., Catford, J. A., Campioli, M., Donohue, I., Ebeling, A., Eskelinen, A., Fay, P. A., Hansart, A., Knops, J. M. H., MacDougall, A. S., Ohlert, T., Olde Venterink, H., Raynaud, X., … Vicca, S. (2021). Soil properties as key predictors of global grassland production: Have we overlooked micronutrients? Ecology Letters, 24(12), 2713–2725.

Van Sundert, K., Brune, V., Bahn, M., Deutschmann, M., Hasibeder, R., Nijs, I., & Vicca, S. (2020). Post-drought rewetting triggers substantial K release and shifts in leaf stoichiometry in managed and abandoned mountain grasslands. Plant and Soil, 448(1-2), 353–368.

Van Sundert, K., Radujković, D., Cools, N., De Vos, B., Etzold, S., Fernández-Martínez, M., Janssens, I. A., Merilä, P., Peñuelas, J., Sardans, J., Stendahl, J., Terrer, C., & Vicca, S. (2020). Towards comparable assessment of the soil nutrient status across scales-Review and development of nutrient metrics. Global Change Biology, 26(2), 392–409.

Terrer, C., Jackson, R. B., Prentice, I. C., Keenan, T. F., Kaiser, C., Vicca, S., Fisher, J. B., Reich, P. B., Stocker, B. D., Hungate, B. A., Peñuelas, J., McCallum, I., Soudzilovskaia, N. A., Cernusak, L. A., Talhelm, A. F., Van Sundert, K., Piao, S., Newton, P. C. D., Hovenden, M. J., … Franklin, O. (2019). Nitrogen and phosphorus constrain the CO2 fertilization of global plant biomass. Nature Climate Change, 9(9), 684–689.

Vicca, S., Stocker, B. D., Reed, S., Wieder, W. R., Bahn, M., Fay, P. A., Janssens, I. A., Lambers, H., Peñuelas, J., Piao, S., Rebel, K. T., Sardans, J., Sigurdsson, B. D., Van Sundert, K., Wang, Y.-P., Zaehle, S., & Ciais, P. (2018). Using research networks to create the comprehensive datasets needed to assess nutrient availability as a key determinant of terrestrial carbon cycling. Environmental Research Letters, 13(12), 125006.

Van Sundert, K., Horemans, J. A., Stendahl, J., & Vicca, S. (2018). The influence of soil properties and nutrients on conifer forest growth in Sweden, and the first steps in developing a nutrient availability metric. Biogeosciences, 15(11), 3475–3496.