Soil Carbon Dynamics

Werner L. Kutsch coordinates the ecosystem fluxes group at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany. He has been awarded the Horst Wiehe Award 1994 by the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (GfO) for an 'outstanding scientific work in the field of ecology'. His research interests lie in soil respiration, plant and microbial eco-physiology, dynamics of ecosystem fluxes, soil and ecosystem carbon balances in temperate and tropical ecosystems. Michael Bahn is senior scientist at the Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, where he teaches ecosystem and plant ecology and ecophysiology. He has carried out research on plant resource utilization, functional biodiversity and ecosystem processes in numerous mountain ecosystems across Europe. For several years he has been particularly concerned with understanding abiotic and biotic controls on ecosystem and soil C fluxes and their components across a range of spatial and temporal scales, with a focus on global change and the plant-soil interface. Andreas Heinemeyer has been a soil scientist for more than 10 years, first at the University of Gottingen, Germany, and then at the University of York in 2002, where he continued to work as a research associate within the UK Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics. His research focus is on relating soil carbon stocks and fluxes to climate with a particular focus on the mycorrhizal symbioses, linking plant carbon supply to soil respiration. He was the first to have continuously measured mycorrhizal soil carbon fluxes in the field and is increasingly involved in plant-soil carbon flux model developments.