Climate Change affects the terrestrial biosphere, while changes in the biosphere feedback and affect the climate system. Understanding these complex interactions is important at these times of Global Change.
Related research in our lab track the respiration in soils, and the internal CO2 movement and recycling within forest trees. In addition, we explore the engagement of the Alternative Oxidase in natural ecosystems. These research directions are based on high accuracy measurements of O2 concentrations and stable isotopes.
Other research projects focus on developing the use of oxygen stable isotopes of phosphate for tracking phosphorus in dust and its biogeochemical cycling in soil. This research is based on field work, remote-sensing and lab work. These approaches could help evaluate the effects of changing climate on the terrestrial phosphorus cycle, which is an important limiting factor for plant growth.
Finally, lately we have developed in collaboration with Prof. Amrani, from my institute, an approach to measure the sulfur isotopes of carbonyl sulfide (COS) and used this to determine its isotopic composition in the atmosphere in plant uptake, and in seawater. Our continued research in this field will help to better constrain global scale photosynthesis