2-P15: SysPer

Thermodynamic modelling of matter and energy dynamics at the aggregated soil system perspective

Thermodynamics has been successful in describing systems on aggregated high-level perspective with a focus on the overall optimality and limits. However, this level of perspective has only weakly been focused by the projects funded during the first phase of the priority programme. While the study of the measured heat-exchange (enthalpy) has gained insight into specific processes, the overall dynamics need to also study Gibbs energy and entropy and extend thermodynamic description beyond the microbial growth reaction. Hence, this project will leverage whole-system perspective, modelling, and maximum power principle (MPP) 1) to study how microbial traits of allocation to non-growth components feed back to energy available to the microbes, and 2) to study how boundary conditions shape adaptation of microbial community traits by maximising the rate of extracted useful work. We will (i) gain further insight on the direction of the development of energy use efficiency (EUE) and carbon use efficiency (CUE) under different boundary conditions and (ii) derive simple relationships and models with fewer parameters that describe the general average development across many detailed realizations. Using these aggregate models, we will explore relevant feedbacks that shape whole-system optimality and provide constraints for potential CUE and non-growth energy expenditure. These  constraint will help those groups who work with more detailed models to gain insight also into detailed processes and contribute to the interpretation of other SPP experiments. Moreover, the system perspective will gain insight at a more general level and allows predictions also for other soil systems, where not as many detailed observations are available.

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Link to English scientific abstract
Link to German scientific abstract

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Research Team