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Content archived on 2024-06-20

Tracing the carbon and water cycle in terrestrial ecosystems with stable isotope spectroscopy

Objective

Understanding the processes and mechanisms that control carbon and water flow through terrestrial ecosystems is essential both to estimate the current capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and to predict the ecosystem's responses under a changing climate. Stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen provide a powerful tool to trace the flow of carbon and water through ecosystems and to elucidate the interplay between various ecosystem compartments. So far, stable isotope research has been restricted to discontinuous field sampling due to laborious flask sampling and expensive lab analysis.

With this project we propose to build one of the first laser spectroscopy facilities for stable isotope ecology research in Europe based on a newly developed laser spectroscopy technology from the USA. Based on these laser systems for continuous stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements together with the eddy covariance technique and chamber systems we want to (a) quantify a complete stable carbon isotope budget of an ecosystem in the field, (b) trace the flow of carbon from the atmosphere through the plant to the soil via isotopes in natural abundance and isotope labelling, (c) link the carbon and water cycle at ecosystem level, and (d) study the impact of climatic extreme events, such as drought, on the carbon flow. The project will combine observational fieldwork with manipulative drought experiments and ecosystem scale modelling.
This project will complement research activities at the host ETH Zürich and will integrate into European carbon cycle projects. Findings from this project are expected to contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of the terrestrial carbon sink in Europe and of its response to climatic extreme events.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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FP6-2005-MOBILITY-8
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Funding Scheme

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EXT - Marie Curie actions-Grants for Excellent Teams

Coordinator

EIDGENÖSSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZÜRICH
EU contribution
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Total cost

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