De­part­ment of Biogeo­chem­istry

The Department of Biogeochemistry investigates the pathways, interactions and environmental regulation of microbial processes that control the cycling of bioactive elements in the Ocean.

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Biogeochemistry Group

Re­search in the Biogeo­chem­istry De­part­ment fo­cuses on mi­cro­bi­o­lo­gical and geo­chem­ical pro­cesses that con­trol bio­act­ive ele­ment cyc­ling in the mar­ine en­vir­on­ment. We em­ploy geo­chem­ical, mi­cro­bi­o­lo­gical, mod­el­ing, mo­lecu­lar and single-cell tech­niques to study the en­vir­on­mental reg­u­la­tion of these pro­cesses and their ef­fects on the global biogeo­chem­ical cycles. Our goal is to provide fun­da­mental in­sights into mi­cro­bial me­di­ated pro­cesses in the ocean that ul­ti­mately af­fect ocean chem­istry, bio­logy and cli­mate. The res­ults are a vi­tal in­put for mod­els that are used to pre­dict po­ten­tial fu­ture changes res­ult­ing from hu­man activ­it­ies.

Greenhouse Gases Research Group

The Green­house Gas Re­search Group, headed by Jana Milucka, stud­ies mi­cro­bial pro­cesses that con­trib­ute to the turnover of the trace green­house gases meth­ane and ni­trous ox­ide in aquatic en­vir­on­ments. Our goal is to un­der­stand which factors con­trol these pro­cesses in vari­ous fresh­wa­ter and mar­ine hab­it­ats and how these pro­cesses re­spond to the changes in nu­tri­ent cycles in­duced by cli­mate change and hu­man activ­ity.

Microbial Physiology Group

In the newly foun­ded Mi­cro­bial Physiology Group, headed by Boran Kartal, we are ded­ic­ated to find new biogeo­chem­ical re­ac­tions, un­der­stand mi­cro­bial physiology and mi­cro­bial in­ter­ac­tions. This in­form­a­tion will be used to bet­ter un­der­stand the activ­it­ies and in­ter­ac­tions of key mi­croor­gan­isms in bio­act­ive ele­ment cyc­ling.