Universität Bonn

INRES Pflanzenbau

Evaluation of active and passive soil organic matter fractions on selected treatments of the long term fertilizer experiment at Dikopshof (Experimental/laboratory work).

Master Thesis

Research area

Crop science

Motivation / State of the art / Relevance

Climate change is affected by global carbon cycle, where a large amount of carbon is currently stored in the form of organic matter in agricultural land. The large part of soil organic matter (SOM) is stored in passive pools that are resistant to decomposition and change over time. However, SOM turnover strongly influence by agricultural management through the active SOM pool. Active SOM is the most sensitive pool available relatively in small proportion and it is easily affected by different agricultural management and environmental fluctuations. Therefore, the assessment of active SOM change can provide us with a better understanding of the effect of agricultural management on SOM pools.

Objectives

The objective of this research is to quantify various SOM fractions (active and passive) and their relative proportions in total soil organic matter (TSOM) under the long-term fertilizer experiment.

Methodology / Procedure / Workscope / external cooperation

  1. Experimental work: soil sampling
  2. Laboratory work: measuring SOM fractions

Expected results

Literature research, statistical analysis and discussion of experimental results and their graphical representation, discussion of results.

Timeframe

About 6 months (start possible at any time)

Language

English preferred, German possible

Previous knowledge

Basic work experience in the laboratory and interest in crop science topics including the soil organic matter and carbon cycle.

Supervisors

Dr. Thomas Gaiser

Dr. Aram Gorooei

Dr. Bahareh Kamali

Contact

Dr. Thomas Gaiser (tgaiser@uni-bonn.de), Dr. Aram Gorooei (gorooei@uni-bonn.de), Dr. Bahareh Kamali (bkamali@uni-bonn.de)

Wird geladen