At the edge of a field, a gray cylinder with an open lid stands out of the ground.

Aqua Diva

The Collaborative Research Centre 1076 AquaDiva (CRC AquaDiva) focuses on the important roles of water (Aqua) and biodiversity (Diva) for shaping the structure, properties, and functions of Earth's Critical Zone that extends from the vegetation through the soil and down into the first aquifers.

The Earth's Critical Zone is the thin, living, and permeable layer that connects the atmosphere with the geosphere, and provides the living environment for most terrestrial biota. Humans live in the Critical Zone, and benefit from the vital services it provides, including clean water resources. Pollution, land-use, and climate change increasingly alter the surface compartments of the Critical Zone. But we have not yet explored this part of the earth enough to fully understand the consequences for the subsurface.

CRC 1076 AquaDiva: Understanding the Links between Surface and Subsurface Biogeosphere at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany

Collaborative Research Centre 1076 AquaDiva

CRC 1076 AquaDiva: Understanding the Links between Surface and Subsurface Biogeosphere at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zIGy5ECK6I

The principle aim of the CRC AquaDiva is to increase our understanding of the links between surfaces and subsurface, especially how organisms inhabiting the subsurface Critical Zone reflect and influence their physical, ecological, and geochemical environment, and affect water and matter transiting the Critical Zone. To achieve this, we have constructed a novel infrastructure platform, the Hainich Critical Zone Exploratory, to study how water and gas fluxes link surface vegetation and soils under different land management to aquifer complexes.

The CRC AquaDiva is led by the Friedrich Schiller University (FSU) Jena, in collaboration with the MPI-BGC, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, and the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT).

Our department is involved in three different AquaDiva Projects. Gerd Gleixner and Alice Orme study the molecular nature of dissolved organic matter and how this reflects the metabolism and cycling of subsurface organisms (project A02). Susan Trumbore and Thorsten Frosch (FSU/IPHT) use Raman and other gas sensing techniques to study gases in the critical Zone (project B03). Valerie Schwab (project B03) and Beatrix Heinze (project A03) use compound specific isotope measurements to trace carbon flow between organic and inorganic forms, especially focusing on the use of fossil organic matter in groundwater communities. Simon Schroeter moved from A02 to be a new postdoc funded to help synthesize information about the cycling of elements across the multiple disciplines represented in the Collaborative Research Center (project D03).

Team at MPI-BGC

Name
Phone
Room
Susan Trumbore
Director
  • +49 3641 57-6110
B2.003
MPG Publications
Gerd Gleixner
Group Leader
  • +49 3641 57-6172
B2.021
MPG Publications
Beatrix Maria Heinze
Doctoral Researcher
  • +49 3641 57-6147
B1.019
Alice Orme
Doctoral Researcher
  • +49 3641 57-6130
B1.005
MPG Publications
Simon A. Schroeter
PostDoc
B1.005
MPG PublicationsGoogle Scholar AquaDiva
Valerie Schwab-Lavric
  • +49 3641 57-6169
B2.022
MPG Publications
Lucia Winkler
Doctoral Researcher
Lucia Winkler
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