Sandra Jämtgård

I am a researcher in ecophysiology. My main interest is the ecophysiology of nitrogen use efficiency in plants and plant-soil interactions. Through my research I want to find out what is plant availability of nitrogen in soil. In particular, I am curious about how plant availability of nitrogen in soil, nitrogen uptake, allocation and metabolism varies in different plant types and environments from a whole plant perspective as well as at cellular and biochemical level. In extension to this, how can this be challenged to potentially increase nitrogen use efficiency and decrease nitrogen pollution in managed environments.

Currently, I am working on the occurrence of organic nitrogen compounds in soil with the soil sampling method microdialysis. With this method sampling is carried out in the microscale with minimal disturbance of the soil and soil processes, which makes it an ideal tool for studying organic nitrogen in soil. Me and colleagues are working on development of the microdialysis method in various directions to investigate plant nitrogen availability. Microdialysis measures induced diffusive fluxes of nitrogen in soil but in addition to this we are also investigating the component of mass flow for nitrogen delivery to the plant root surface. In these projects LC-MS (QQQ) analysis of amino acids and dipeptides and LC-MS (qTOF) quantification of isotopically labelled amino acids and metabolomic screening with GC-MS are used in collaboration with Swedish metabolomics centre (SMC) and SLU Stable isotope laboratory (SSIL).

Microdialysis probe inserted into the soil organic layer in the boreal forest.

Microdialysis probe inserted in agricultural soil.

Syringe pump used in microdialysis sampling.

Education

2010 PhD in Crop Science, Dept of Agr Research for Northern Sweden, SLU, Sweden

2004 MSc in Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Positions

2015-present    Researcher, Dept of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU, Sweden

2020                  Docent in Biology

2012-2015         Postdoc, FORMAS, Dept of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU

2012                   Postdoc, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

2010-2011         Postdoc, Dept of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU, Sweden

Post docs

Shandry Tebele (2024-present)

Andreas Schneider (2022-present)

Clydecia Spitzer (2022- present)

Kanchan Vishwakarma (2021-present)

Shun Hasegawa (2022-2023)

Scott Buckley (2018-2023)

Mark Swaine (2017-2019)

Dörte Randewig (2015-2017)

PhD students

Anne Braunroth (2023-present, Main supervisor)

Kelley Bassett Gundale (2020-present, Main supervisor)

Anna Renström (2020-present, Assistant supervisor)

Oskar Forsum (2016, Assistant supervisor)

Olusegun Oyewole (2015, Assistant supervisor)

Students

MSc student in Biology Pia Sundvall (MSc, 2015-2016)

Veronika Link (Internship student, Sept-Dec 2015)

Renström A, Choudhary S, Gandla ML, Jönsson LJ, Hedenström M, Jämtgård S, Tuominen H. 2024. The effect of nitrogen source and levels on hybrid aspen tree physiology and wood formation. Physiologia Plantarum 176, e14219.

Bassett KR, Östlund L, Gundale MJ, Fridman J, Jämtgård S. 2023. Forest inventory tree core archive reveals changes in boreal wood traits over seven decades. Science of the Total Environment 900, 165795.

Buckley S, Lim H, Marshall JD, Randewig D, Ayodeji Oyewole O, Näsholm T,  Jämtgård S. 2023. Using microdialysis with a deuterium oxide tracer to estimate water exchange, water content and active surface area of the probe. Geoderma 439, 116689.

Svennerstam H, Jämtgård S. 2022. Timing is everything–obtaining accurate measures of plant uptake of amino acids. New Phytologist 234: 311-318.

Buckley S, Brackin R, Näsholm T, Schmidt S, Jämtgård S. 2022. The influence of sucrose on soil nitrogen availability–A root exudate simulation using microdialysis. Geoderma 409, 115645.

Lim H, Jämtgård S, Oren R, Gruffman L, Kunz S, Näsholm T. 2022. Organic nitrogen enhances nitrogen nutrition and early growth of Pinus sylvestris seedlings. Tree physiology 42 (3), 513-522. 

Plett K, Buckley S, Plett J, Anderson I, Lundberg-Felten J, Jämtgård S. 2021. Novel microdialysis technique reveals a dramatic shift in metabolite secretion during the early stages of the interaction between the ectomycorrhizal fungus Pisolithus microcarpus and its host Eucalyptus grandis. Microorganisms 9: 1817.

Gratz R, Ahmad I, Svennerstam H, Jämtgård S, Love J, Holmlund M, Ivanov R, Ganeteg U. 2021. Organic nitrogen nutrition: LHT1.2 protein from hybrid aspen (Populus tremula L. x tremuloides Michx) is a functional amino acid transporter and a homolog of Arabidopsis LHT1. Tree Physiology 41: 1479-1496.

Buckley S, Brackin R, Jämtgård S, Näsholm T, Schmidt S, 2020. Microdialysis in soil environments: Current practice and future perspectives. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 143: 107743

Randewig D, Marshall J, Näsholm T, Jämtgård S. 2019. Combining microdialysis with metabolomics to characterize the in situ composition of dissolved organic compounds in boreal forest soil. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 136: 107530.

Buckley S, Allen D, Brackin R, Jämtgård S, Näsholm T, Schmidt S. 2019. Microdialysis as an in situ technique for sampling soil enzymes. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 135:20-27.

Dion P, Jämtgård S, Bertrand A, Pepin S and Dorais M. 2018. Organic nitrogen uptake and assimilation in Cucumis sativus using position-specific labeling and compound-specific isotope analysis. Frontiers in Plant Science. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.01596

Jämtgård S, Robinson N, Moritz T, Colgrave M, Schmidt S. 2018. Optimizing methods for the recovery and quantification of di- and tripeptides in soil. Soil Research 56:404-412

Oyewole O, Inselsbacher E, Näsholm T, Jämtgård S. 2017. Incorporating mass flow strongly promotes N flux rates in boreal forest soils. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 114:263–269.

Buckley S, Brackin R, Näsholm T, Schmidt S, Jämtgård S. 2017. Improving in situ recovery of soil nitrogen using the microdialysis technique. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 114:93-103.

Ganeteg U, Ahmad I, Jämtgård S, Aguetoni Cambui C, Inselsbacher E, Svennerstam H, Schmidt S and Näsholm T. 2017. Amino acid transporter mutants of Arabidopsis provides evidence that a non-mycorrhizal plant acquires organic nitrogen from agricultural soil. Plant Cell and Environment 40: 413-423.

Oyewole O, Jämtgård S, Gruffman L, Inselsbacher E, and Näsholm T. 2016. Soil diffusive fluxes constitute the bottleneck to tree nitrogen nutrition in a Scots pine forest. Plant and Soil 399:109-120.

Czaban W, Jämtgård S, Näsholm T, Rasmussen J, Nicolaisen M and Fomsgaard I. 2016. Direct acquisition of organic N by white clover even in the presence of inorganic N. Plant and Soil 407: 91-107.

Böhlenius H, Övergaard R and Jämtgård S. 2016. Influence of Soil Types on Establishment and Early Growth of Populus trichocarpa. Open Journal of Forestry 6: 361-372.

Gruffman L, Jämtgård S and Näsholm T. 2014. Plant nitrogen status and co-occurrence of organic and inorganic nitrogen sources influence root uptake by Scots pine seedlings. Tree Physiology 34: 205-213.

Inselsbacher E, Öhlund J, Jämtgård S, Huss-Danell K and Näsholm T. 2011. The potential of microdialysis to monitor organic and inorganic nitrogen compounds in soil. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 43: 1321-1332.

Svennerstam H, Jämtgård S, Ahmad I, Huss-Danell K, Näsholm T and Ganeteg, U. 2011. Transporters in Arabidopsis roots mediating uptake of amino acids at naturally-occurring concentrations. New Phytologist 191: 459–467.

Jämtgård S, Näsholm T and Huss-Danell K. 2010. Nitrogen compounds in soil solutions of agricultural land. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 42: 2325-2330.

Jämtgård S, Näsholm T and Huss-Danell K. 2008. Characteristics of amino acid uptake in barley. Plant and Soil 302: 221-231.

Researchgate

Associate researcher at Umeå Plant Science Centre, UPSC