abgeschlossene Projekte

Climate change fundamentally changes the water cycle and thus elementary processes within soil ecosystems. Consequently, not only mean values in temperature and water availability will change, but also extreme events like droughts will intensify. Soil microorganisms maintain the functioning of agroecosystems: Nearly every chemical transformation in soils involves their active contribution. Soil microbial communities determine element cycling, groundwater quality, and presence of volatile compounds in the atmosphere. To investigate how the functioning of soil microorganisms will change due to climate change and how this will be related to crop yield and quality, the HoCC experiment was initiated. In this unique long-term field experiment, an agroecosystem has been exposed to reduced annual mean precipitation and elevated temperature according to a realistic future climate scenario for eleven years. In this project, we use the HoCC and focus on the importance of microbial adaptation and respective ecosystem functions to long-term reduced water availability and warming for the response of agroecosystems to severe drought events.

Status: laufend

Projektbeginn: Januar 2020

Projektende: Januar 2023

Förderer: Research Training Group "Water - People - Agriculture"

Infolge der Ausbringung organischer Düngemittel auf landwirtschaftlichen Nutzflächen können möglicherweise erhebliche Mengen an Kunststoffrückstände in Böden gelangen. Zur Auswirkung der Kunststoffrückstände auf Bodenorganismen und wesentliche Bodenfunktionen existieren keine aussagekräftigen Daten. Dieses Projekt wird Daten zum Abbauverhalten der Rückstände von Kunststoffsammelmedien nach einer biologischen Behandlung durch Kompostierung oder Fermentation erheben.

PIs: Dr. Holger Pagel, Prof. Dr. Ellen Kandeler

Mitarbeiter: Dr. Sven Marhan, Lion Schöpfer (PhD student)

Koordinator: Jens Forberger, Fraunhofer-Institut für Chemische Technologie

Partner: Prof. Dr. Ruth Freitag, Thomas Steiner (PhD student), Universität Bayreuth, Bioprozesstechnik
              Dr. Martin Löder, Prof. Dr. Christian Laforsch, Universität Bayreuth, Tierökologie 1
              Jörg Bernd, Jürgen Geyer, BEM Umweltservice GmbH

Link: www.projekt-babba.de

Status: laufend

Projektbeginn: Juni 2021

Projektende: August 2022

Förderung: BWPLUS, Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft Baden-Württemberg

This project is part of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1253 "CAMPOS - Catchments as Reactors: Metabolism of Pollutants on the Landscape Scale". In P6 we focus on soils as reactive landscape elements that link the land surface to subsoil environments. Agricultural soils are particularly important because, in industrialized countries, they are subject to large inputs of agrochemicals the fate of which is determined by a complex interplay of transformation and mass transfer processes. The spread of pesticides in the environment has been recognized as a problem for more than fifty years, causing governments to develop comprehensive regulation frameworks for authorization and use. Yet, despite the general biodegradability of commercial pesticides, previous studies have revealed long-term storage and persistence of small amounts of pesticides in soil. Unfortunately, we are still lacking the mechanistic understanding of interacting biogeochemical processes governing the persistence of organic pollutants in soil. The main aim of P6 is to understand why pesticides accumulate in soils and what the key controlling factors are as well as to find improved modeling approaches for pesticide turnover in the soil compartment of catchment-scale reactive transport models. Laboratory experiments will be performed with the two model compounds atrazine and MCPA to investigate specific mechanisms limiting the biodegradation of pesticides and facilitating their release. We will investigate if concentration thresholds of pesticides trigger functional gene expression and energy-limited growth of pesticide-degrading microorganisms as well as how physiological responses of microorganisms (sensitivity to moisture and temperature, drought stress) affect biodegradation and leaching. Furthermore, the relative importance of specific microhabitats (rhizosphere, detritusphere) as “hot spots” and of “hot moments” of microbial pesticide turnover will be evaluated.

Status: laufend

Projektbeginn: Januar 2017

Projektende: Juni 2021

Förderkennzeichen DFG: SFB 1253