Characterisation of the soil organic matter of arctic permafrost soils
Topic for a master thesis (e.g. Geoscience, Landscape Sciences) with Prof. Dr. Guggenberger and Dr. Peplau at the institute of soil science.
Global warming leads to strong environmental changes. To understand how climate change, thawing permafrost and production greenhouse gases interact, there is a need for gaining a detailed knowledge of the ongoing processes. Understanding the composition of soil organic matter and their dependence on water and redox regimes is of central importance. The aim of the theses is to close these knowledge gaps by application of various analytical methods to soil samples from a permafrost / wetness gradient from Greenland. The quantification of biomarkers delivers valuable information about the microbial breakdown of organic matter in soils. The analysis of amino sugars will give information about the share of fungal and bacterial necromass on the soil organic matter.
Tasks:
- Literature review about microbial stabilization and break down processes of soil organic matter
- Formulating research hypotheses
- Lab work: Quantification of amino sugars (after extensive training on the method) at the laboratory of the institute of soil science
- Evaluation and discussion of the results
