Wechselwirkungen zwischen Geo- und Biosphäre in einer Welt im Wandel
Lebenswichtige Ressourcen wie unsere Atemluft und unser Trinkwasser sind durch Wechselwirkungen zwischen der Geo- und der Biosphäre entstanden. Deshalb ist es für das Wohl der Menschheit unverzichtbar, diese Interaktionen im Detail zu verstehen. Der gegenwärtige Einfluss des Menschen auf Ökosysteme ist beispiellos, aber die zugrundeliegenden Naturgesetze sind universell gültig. Der Exzellenzcluster TERRA wird untersuchen, wie Geo-Biosphären-Wechselwirkungen auf Umweltveränderungen reagieren und sie beeinflussen. TERRA untersucht die Hypothese, ob und wie die Diversität der Geosphäre die Biosphäre stabilisiert und umgekehrt die Diversität der Biosphäre die Geosphäre stabilisiert.
TERRA steht in der Tübinger Tradition, in den Geo- und Biowissenschaften gemeinsam zu forschen, und schließt Forschende der Universität Hohenheim und der Senckenberg-Gesellschaft für Naturforschung in Frankfurt mit ein. TERRA verfolgt einen integrativen Ansatz, der Feldbeobachtungen, Experimente und Computerstudien über unterschiedliche Zeiten der Erdgeschichte kombiniert.
Sprecherinnen und Sprecher
- Professorin Dr. Michaela Dippold, Geo- und Umweltforschungszentrum (GUZ) der Universität Tübingen
- Professorin Dr. Kira Rehfeld, Geo- und Umweltforschungszentrum (GUZ) der Universität Tübingen
- Professor Dr. Olaf Cirpka, Geo- und Umweltforschungszentrum (GUZ) der Universität Tübingen
Partnereinrichtungen
Der Cluster im Wissenschaftspodcast
"Key To My Research"
Are Roots The Key To Climate Change? - Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold
Listen
#8
KEY TO MY RESEARCH
Are Roots The Key To Climate Change? - Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold
Host:
Welcome to Key To My Research, the science podcast by the Excellence Strategy at the University of Tübingen. In this podcast, we explain in a simple way how outstanding scientists are researching complex topics that affect our everyday lives.
My name is Jennifer, and I’m your host. In today's episode, we meet Professor Michaela Dippold.
Prof. Dippold:
From all the subjects in the environment, the soil seems for me the one where we know the least and everything where we know the least always fascinated me all over my life.
Host:
She is Professor of Geo-Biosphere Interactions at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen. She specializes in the relationship between plants and the connection they form to soil via their roots.
Prof. Dippold:
The key to my research is the fascination about nature. Going outdoor, enjoying what you see, and the willingness to understand the processes in the environment to be able to protect the fascination of nature.
Host:
A fascination with nature has always been a part of Professor Dippold's life.
Growing up on a farm, she spent most of her childhood outdoors.
Prof. Dippold:
I grew up on a farm where I was taught from the beginning that the source of our life, that food protection is essential, and that the soil is the source of our food production. And by that, I started to study geoecology with a focus on soil science. So, I started at the University of Bayreuth, where I studied geoecology. Then I went to the University of Göttingen, where I was for several years in an agricultural faculty, really working in the field of agriculture. But then I was attracted back to the geoscience and the Geo ecology by the University of Tübingen and ended up here on this full professorship.
Host:
To better understand what kind of research Professor Dippold specializes in, we need to take a closer look at two terms. The biosphere and the geosphere.
Prof. Dippold: So the biosphere is all the living components of that planet that comprise the elements we see, the animals, the plants. But a lot of the biosphere is invisible for us, and this is the microbial world. So for example, our body consists of more microbial cells than human cells, and similar, it's everywhere in the environment. But so all these living components live in their environment, which consists of many abiotic components. And this is the minerals they are living on, they are feeding on; this comprises the water, the air that is surrounding them, and all these abiotic components, they comprise the geosphere.
Host:
In the soil, plants interact with minerals. This process is of great interest to Professor Dippold and her team. In other words:
-Everything about biogeochemistry
-How the various elements cycle through the environment
-up to the role of plants and microbes in these cycles.
The current projects of Professor Dippold and her team mainly focus on
-Agriculture
-Carbon capture in soils
-and the impact fire has on ecosystems and nutrient dynamics.
For Professor Dippold, there is one project that is of great importance:
-The research on the rhizosphere of crops in drought-prone areas, which are also severely affected by climate change.
Prof. Dippold:
I'm looking at crops which may be able to produce yield even if climate change aggravates the production conditions in some areas of the globe dramatically. And dramatic impacts we will definitely have in the tropics. Large parts of the tropics will suffer from strongly increasing droughts, and the droughts will be more abundant, the droughts will be more severe. And the crop production there is at the moment not adapted to that because the crop production went from very traditional crops to crops which have a potential to be sold on markets. And these crops are not those which are the most resistant or robust to the climate change that we may expect.
Host:
To survive these extreme changes, plants need to be better adapted.
And this is where Professor Dippold's research comes in.
Prof. Dippold:
Water uptake, nutrient uptake—all this occurs by the roots, and the roots need the adaptations to deal with drier soils, with soils which start to get nutrient depleted due to droughts when nutrients are less available. And roots and soil traditionally interact in many ways, and modern breeding did not look at these ways at all because you can't
easily look below ground. You can easily see the leaves, you optimize the leaves, you are breeding with high fertilizer input under ideal conditions. You never look under production under marginal conditions.
Host:
And that is exactly what Professor Dippold's research is all about. She likes to challenge herself.
Prof. Dippold:
From all the subjects in the environment, the soil seems for me the one where we know the least, and everything where we know the least always fascinated me all over my life.
Host:
Let's go back to the roots, literally. One of the main targets of Professor Dippold's research are the so-called mycorrhiza fungi, an ancient symbiosis between plants and fungi.
Prof. Dippold:
This lasts back to the first plant coming from the water to the land, which did not have roots at all, but which only took up their nutrients by the fungi which was interacting with the plant. And this symbiosis still exists, and it's there for 80% of the plants that we can see, nearly all crops have it. And this symbiosis helps, especially under drought. And one of our key outcomes was that the symbiosis may always be there, but only under drought, the symbiosis start to become active. And it starts to really supply the plant with the nutrients it needs, which it cannot take up by itself anymore if the soil is completely dried out. But the fungi is still active.
I think mycorrhizal fungi are definitely one of the keys. They are not the only ones, so they also do not work on their own. That is the very interesting thing. So there are many bacteria, so a magnitude of bacteria around the roots. It's the similar thing then with our body. Around the root is a magnitude more of bacteria cells than there are root cells. They all interact with the plant, and they all interact also with the fungi. So, the system is really complex that is going on there. And the moment the system is stressed, because, for example, a drought appears, a heat wave comes, or any of these disturbances that global change will bring with higher abundance. These stresses induce shifts in the system, and kinds of rescue mechanisms start that enable or maintain the plant staying alive through these periods where real growth is not possible anymore.
Host:
The element fire also endangers plants. This brings us to another important area of research in Professor Dippold's work, disturbance ecology. If there are conditions that lead to a temporal change in the ecosystem, experts speak of a "disturbance." Examples include floods, earthquakes, storms, and even fires.
Prof. Dippold:
Such disturbances strongly interrupt the cycle of systems and fires; as we know from the daily press, they are increasing in many ecosystems globally with high abundance; the areas they cover are larger and larger. And the implications of them are very tough for the environment and for the people.
Host:
But what kind of fires are we talking about? The natural ones or the man-made ones?
Prof. Dippold:
We talk about both natural fires and man-made fires, which are somehow related. So there is ecosystems globally which really depend on a certain degree of natural fires. But under the current conditions in all systems globally, the fire abundance and severity increase, and very often they are man-made. So systems which tend to burn under natural conditions burn now much more often. And it's very often because the fires are fires from agricultural practices or forest management practices which were lost out of control. But it's also because of camping or the phenomenon we read about in the daily press. And this high intensity and high abundance of fires exceeds what the ecosystems are adapted to.
Host:
Fires don't usually go deep into the ground. Just a few millimeters. And even if the heat doesn't penetrate deep into the soil, the loss of vegetation can be a big problem for sensitive ecosystems like rainforests.
Prof. Dippold:
The consequences are more on a long-term basis. So in those systems which, like the tropical rainforest, have this extremely close recycling of nutrients, you take out one component of the cycle. And taking this component, the vegetation off, means the cycle is open and means the nutrients are lost. And this loss of nutrients has consequences for decades to centuries because they need to be recovered from the soil. And then it depends on how rich the soil is, if it can sustain that the same vegetation grows again in a certain time. Or whether the loss of nutrients really is now a limiting factor for the vegetation coming up after the fire.
Host:
These are just a few examples of Professor Dippold's research. As a scientist, the university naturally plays a large role in her research.
Prof. Dippold:
With moving here, I was the first time able to really realize my research in all depths. So, I got a lot of opportunities here. And the working environment here is so rich in opportunities for collaborations that the first time I have the feeling that all the targets which were restricted I couldn't tackle in the past. All these doors are now open for my research.
My favorite part of the job is educating PhD students. So, bringing somebody who has this kind of, I want to look into science, into this fascination of searching for answers. And this happiness that you see in the eyes of your PhD students when they found out something really astonishing, something really new. And they identify, and they realize something that they say, wow. And now I'm very close to the theory that this and this researcher once postulated, this makes you really happy.
Host:
This was: “Key To My Research”, a Podcast produced by changing time in cooperation with the University of Tübingen. For more information and links to the sources, see the show notes. There you can also find a link to the hole interview with Professor Dippold. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and recommend it to your friends and colleagues.
Authors: Chris Veit and Joti Fotiadis.
Special thanks to: Professor Michaela Dippold, Heiko Heil, Oliver Häußler, Kurt Schneider and Oliver Lichtwald.
My name is Jennifer, thanks for listening and see you next time.
KEY TO MY RESEARCH
Are Roots The Key To Climate Change? - Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold
Host:
Welcome to Key To My Research, the science podcast by the Excellence Strategy at the University of Tübingen. In this podcast, we explain in a simple way how outstanding scientists are researching complex topics that affect our everyday lives.
My name is Jennifer, and I’m your host. In today's episode, we meet Professor Michaela Dippold.
Prof. Dippold:
From all the subjects in the environment, the soil seems for me the one where we know the least and everything where we know the least always fascinated me all over my life.
Host:
She is Professor of Geo-Biosphere Interactions at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen. She specializes in the relationship between plants and the connection they form to soil via their roots.
Prof. Dippold:
The key to my research is the fascination about nature. Going outdoor, enjoying what you see, and the willingness to understand the processes in the environment to be able to protect the fascination of nature.
Host:
A fascination with nature has always been a part of Professor Dippold's life.
Growing up on a farm, she spent most of her childhood outdoors.
Prof. Dippold:
I grew up on a farm where I was taught from the beginning that the source of our life, that food protection is essential, and that the soil is the source of our food production. And by that, I started to study geoecology with a focus on soil science. So, I started at the University of Bayreuth, where I studied geoecology. Then I went to the University of Göttingen, where I was for several years in an agricultural faculty, really working in the field of agriculture. But then I was attracted back to the geoscience and the Geo ecology by the University of Tübingen and ended up here on this full professorship.
Host:
To better understand what kind of research Professor Dippold specializes in, we need to take a closer look at two terms. The biosphere and the geosphere.
Prof. Dippold: So the biosphere is all the living components of that planet that comprise the elements we see, the animals, the plants. But a lot of the biosphere is invisible for us, and this is the microbial world. So for example, our body consists of more microbial cells than human cells, and similar, it's everywhere in the environment. But so all these living components live in their environment, which consists of many abiotic components. And this is the minerals they are living on, they are feeding on; this comprises the water, the air that is surrounding them, and all these abiotic components, they comprise the geosphere.
Host:
In the soil, plants interact with minerals. This process is of great interest to Professor Dippold and her team. In other words:
-Everything about biogeochemistry
-How the various elements cycle through the environment
-up to the role of plants and microbes in these cycles.
The current projects of Professor Dippold and her team mainly focus on
-Agriculture
-Carbon capture in soils
-and the impact fire has on ecosystems and nutrient dynamics.
For Professor Dippold, there is one project that is of great importance:
-The research on the rhizosphere of crops in drought-prone areas, which are also severely affected by climate change.
Prof. Dippold:
I'm looking at crops which may be able to produce yield even if climate change aggravates the production conditions in some areas of the globe dramatically. And dramatic impacts we will definitely have in the tropics. Large parts of the tropics will suffer from strongly increasing droughts, and the droughts will be more abundant, the droughts will be more severe. And the crop production there is at the moment not adapted to that because the crop production went from very traditional crops to crops which have a potential to be sold on markets. And these crops are not those which are the most resistant or robust to the climate change that we may expect.
Host:
To survive these extreme changes, plants need to be better adapted.
And this is where Professor Dippold's research comes in.
Prof. Dippold:
Water uptake, nutrient uptake—all this occurs by the roots, and the roots need the adaptations to deal with drier soils, with soils which start to get nutrient depleted due to droughts when nutrients are less available. And roots and soil traditionally interact in many ways, and modern breeding did not look at these ways at all because you can't
easily look below ground. You can easily see the leaves, you optimize the leaves, you are breeding with high fertilizer input under ideal conditions. You never look under production under marginal conditions.
Host:
And that is exactly what Professor Dippold's research is all about. She likes to challenge herself.
Prof. Dippold:
From all the subjects in the environment, the soil seems for me the one where we know the least, and everything where we know the least always fascinated me all over my life.
Host:
Let's go back to the roots, literally. One of the main targets of Professor Dippold's research are the so-called mycorrhiza fungi, an ancient symbiosis between plants and fungi.
Prof. Dippold:
This lasts back to the first plant coming from the water to the land, which did not have roots at all, but which only took up their nutrients by the fungi which was interacting with the plant. And this symbiosis still exists, and it's there for 80% of the plants that we can see, nearly all crops have it. And this symbiosis helps, especially under drought. And one of our key outcomes was that the symbiosis may always be there, but only under drought, the symbiosis start to become active. And it starts to really supply the plant with the nutrients it needs, which it cannot take up by itself anymore if the soil is completely dried out. But the fungi is still active.
I think mycorrhizal fungi are definitely one of the keys. They are not the only ones, so they also do not work on their own. That is the very interesting thing. So there are many bacteria, so a magnitude of bacteria around the roots. It's the similar thing then with our body. Around the root is a magnitude more of bacteria cells than there are root cells. They all interact with the plant, and they all interact also with the fungi. So, the system is really complex that is going on there. And the moment the system is stressed, because, for example, a drought appears, a heat wave comes, or any of these disturbances that global change will bring with higher abundance. These stresses induce shifts in the system, and kinds of rescue mechanisms start that enable or maintain the plant staying alive through these periods where real growth is not possible anymore.
Host:
The element fire also endangers plants. This brings us to another important area of research in Professor Dippold's work, disturbance ecology. If there are conditions that lead to a temporal change in the ecosystem, experts speak of a "disturbance." Examples include floods, earthquakes, storms, and even fires.
Prof. Dippold:
Such disturbances strongly interrupt the cycle of systems and fires; as we know from the daily press, they are increasing in many ecosystems globally with high abundance; the areas they cover are larger and larger. And the implications of them are very tough for the environment and for the people.
Host:
But what kind of fires are we talking about? The natural ones or the man-made ones?
Prof. Dippold:
We talk about both natural fires and man-made fires, which are somehow related. So there is ecosystems globally which really depend on a certain degree of natural fires. But under the current conditions in all systems globally, the fire abundance and severity increase, and very often they are man-made. So systems which tend to burn under natural conditions burn now much more often. And it's very often because the fires are fires from agricultural practices or forest management practices which were lost out of control. But it's also because of camping or the phenomenon we read about in the daily press. And this high intensity and high abundance of fires exceeds what the ecosystems are adapted to.
Host:
Fires don't usually go deep into the ground. Just a few millimeters. And even if the heat doesn't penetrate deep into the soil, the loss of vegetation can be a big problem for sensitive ecosystems like rainforests.
Prof. Dippold:
The consequences are more on a long-term basis. So in those systems which, like the tropical rainforest, have this extremely close recycling of nutrients, you take out one component of the cycle. And taking this component, the vegetation off, means the cycle is open and means the nutrients are lost. And this loss of nutrients has consequences for decades to centuries because they need to be recovered from the soil. And then it depends on how rich the soil is, if it can sustain that the same vegetation grows again in a certain time. Or whether the loss of nutrients really is now a limiting factor for the vegetation coming up after the fire.
Host:
These are just a few examples of Professor Dippold's research. As a scientist, the university naturally plays a large role in her research.
Prof. Dippold:
With moving here, I was the first time able to really realize my research in all depths. So, I got a lot of opportunities here. And the working environment here is so rich in opportunities for collaborations that the first time I have the feeling that all the targets which were restricted I couldn't tackle in the past. All these doors are now open for my research.
My favorite part of the job is educating PhD students. So, bringing somebody who has this kind of, I want to look into science, into this fascination of searching for answers. And this happiness that you see in the eyes of your PhD students when they found out something really astonishing, something really new. And they identify, and they realize something that they say, wow. And now I'm very close to the theory that this and this researcher once postulated, this makes you really happy.
Host:
This was: “Key To My Research”, a Podcast produced by changing time in cooperation with the University of Tübingen. For more information and links to the sources, see the show notes. There you can also find a link to the hole interview with Professor Dippold. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and recommend it to your friends and colleagues.
Authors: Chris Veit and Joti Fotiadis.
Special thanks to: Professor Michaela Dippold, Heiko Heil, Oliver Häußler, Kurt Schneider and Oliver Lichtwald.
My name is Jennifer, thanks for listening and see you next time.
Weitere Informationen
Plants & Soil: In this episode of Key To My Research, we discover how soil, often overlooked, holds the key to understanding and protecting our environment.
Our Guest: Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold. She shares her lifelong fascination with nature, which began on her family farm, and how it led her to explore the hidden world of soil. Learn about the vital connections between plants and soil, the role of microbes, and the ancient symbiosis of mycorrhizal fungi that helps crops survive in harsh conditions. We also dive into her research on the impact of climate change on agriculture, the importance of carbon capture, and how wildfires disrupt ecosystems.
About Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold: Prof. Dr. Dippold is professor of Geo-Biosphere Interactions at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen. She specializes in the relationship between plants and the connection they form to soil via their roots.