Jolanda van Munster

I am a research team leader based at Scotland's Rural College in Edinburgh. My research focusses on the degradation of plant material by fungi, in particular by anaerobic fungi that are part of the microbiome in the ruminant digestive system. I aim to uncover the roles that these fungi play in digestion of plant materials that form part of animal feeds, including their degradative mechanisms, their biochemical effects on plant materials and their interactions with other rumen microbes. To achieve this, I integrate approaches from fungal biology, enzymology and carbohydrate analysis. Together this work advances our functional understanding of the rumen microbiome, which is needed to formulate strategies for more sustainable livestock farming.   I'm also interested in applying fungal cells or enzymes to convert agricultural or food waste to new products.