Project Details
Projekt
The role of microorganisms for carbon and energy turnover in soil microhabitats (MicroHabits)
Subject Area
Soil Sciences
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 465120774
The importance of soil microorganisms for C mineralization and stabilization is increasingly recognized and the thermodynamic link between microbial demand for C and energy has been identified as being a key control in this context. However, elucidating this fundamental link in soil is difficult due to its complex nature with many co-occurring processes and their feedbacks. We plan to address this challenge by testing the sensitivity of the soil system to manipulation of specific factors that determine the level of complexity. The first two work packages will focus on the detritusphere as an important microhabitat where C and energy enter the soil. Specifically, we will test how the abundance and diversity of the initial microbial community as well as the spatial structure of the soil, both of which are important drivers of complexity, affect microbial filtering of litter-derived C and energy. This will be achieved by applying isotopic (full mass balances including 13Cmic, 13C-PLFA,13C-SOC,13C-EOC), calorimetric (heat production) and molecular biological (amplicon sequencing) methods to two microcosm experiments. The third work package follows the new idea of increasing the level of complexity by mixing well adapted soils, and is based on the assumption that mixing the soils will increase the diversity and interactions between soil components and thus the complexity. This experiment called “Functional Complexity” is a joint effort of a total of 9 projects. In addition to these three experiments of the Hohenheim group, we will contribute to other joint experiments (“E-ComPLEX”, “SOM battery”, “Round robin test calorimetry”), which work on complementary aspects of the general topic of the SPP. In conclusion, our project will identify factors that control C and energy fluxes through the microbial community and thus provide the basis for a broader application of thermodynamic principles to C mineralization and stabilization in soils.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
