SPP 1315: Biogeochemical Interfaces in Soil

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Soil is an enlivened, heterogeneous three-phase system made of solid, liquid and gaseous components. It serves as a dynamic interface between the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere and is thus the essential compartment of the "critical zone". Research within the Priority Programme aims at the systematic structural characterisation and functional exploration of biogeochemical interfaces in soil and at unravelling their role for fate and effect of organic chemicals. The overall connecting scientific goal is to gain a mechanistic understanding of the complex interplay and interdependencies of physical, chemical and biological processes operative at biogeochemical interfaces. Grand challenges are to identify the factors controlling the complex architecture of biogeochemical interfaces, to link the processes operative at the molecular and organism scale to phenomena active at the aggregate scale in a mechanistic way and to explain the medium- to long-term behaviour of organic chemicals in soil within a general mechanistic framework. The research is based on the following hypotheses: