The role of microorganisms for carbon and energy turnover in soil microhabitats
This project aims to combine calorimetric measurements with experimental set-ups that explicitly take into account the complex nature of soil systems. This will address the challenge that emergent functions of complex soil systems, such as C and energy fluxes, are integrated across all the components, processes and interactions involved, making it difficult to relate them to specific processes. More specifically, we want to test the sensitivity of the whole system to manipulations of specific factors that determine the level of complexity (similar to sensitivity analysis in modelling). In a first work package, we aim to reduce microbial abundance and diversity in the detritusphere, as this will reduce the number of interactions between members of the microbial community (e.g. by increasing spatial separation), but potentially also potential feedback mechanisms with other soil components. The second work package will investigate the importance of spatial structure for microbial filtering of litter-derived C and energy in the detritusphere. This approach will consider the importance of the spatial organization of the soil components for transport pathways and, hence, accessibility between substrates and microorganisms. The third work package consists of the “Functional Complexity” joint experiment, which is a joint effort of a total of 9 projects. In this work package, we will take the opposite approach and increase the level of complexity. We will test the effect of this approach by exposing the soils to a disturbance and follow the resilience of C and energy fluxes as an emergent property of these soil systems. In conclusion, our proposed project will shed light on confounding factors that hinder the application of thermodynamic principles to matter turnover in soils.
Link to English scientific abstract
Link to German scientific abstract
Link to project in the 1st phase
Research Team
Project Leader
christian.poll@uni-hohenheim.de
Project Leader
sven.marhan@uni-hohenheim.de
Project Leader
ellen.kandeler@uni-hohenheim.de
PhD Student
rufus.wegner@uni-hohenheim.de
University of Hohenheim
Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation
Soil Biology