RELATE (Rhizosphere mediation of biosphere climate feedbacks)

The project’s mission is to advance the mechanistic understanding of biosphere-climate feedbacks by investigating the carbon cycle of wetland rhizospheres. Important project partners are the groups of Klaus-Holger Knorr (Universität Münster), Susanne Liebner (GFZ Potsdam), Pat Megonigal (Smithsonian), and Kai Jensen (Universität Hamburg) and Philipp Porada (Universität Hamburg).

We are particlurly interested in the function and fate of root exudates in wetland soils. For our research, we are combining a wide array of tools from the fields of functional plant ecology, soil biogeochemistry and molecular microbial ecology including planar optode imaging to assess the steep biogeochemical gradients in wetland rhizospheres, isotope labeling to trace carbon from the atmosphere through the plant into the soil system and back to the atmosphere, as well as greenhouse flux measurements.