With effect from 1 June 2020, Flemming Ekelund has been appointed as an honorary professor in soil biology at the Department of Environmental Science, and Head of Department Carsten Suhr Jacobsen is very pleased with the appointment.

"Flemming Ekelund will become part of our microbial ecological research group. He is one of the foremost experts in organisms that eat bacteria in the environment, and thus he has made significant contributions to our understanding of the dynamics of the soil microbiome," explains the head of department.

In his work, the professor has particular focus on protozoa, which are small single-celled organisms, often popularly referred to as single-celled animals. When they eat bacteria, they influence the diversity of bacterial communities and release plant nutrients. Without including the protozoa, it is impossible to understand how microorganisms in the soil affect plant growth and other important processes in the soil, e.g. pesticide degradation.  

Flemming Ekelund graduated as a biologist from the University of Copenhagen, where in 1996 he earned his PhD in biology at the Department of Zoology. In the same year, he was employed as a research assistant professor at the same place, with focus on pesticides and other foreign substances, and since 2000 he has been an associate professor at the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen.

The professor lives in Copenhagen, where he was also born, and he spends a great deal of his spare time on his interest in nature, particularly botany.

The new honorary professor will be holding his traditional inaugural lecture, but the date, time and place have yet to be set because of Covid-19.