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SUMMARY:EESS talk on "Follow the electrons: insights into soil carbon cycl
 ing"
DTSTART:20221018T121500
DTEND:20221018T131500
DTSTAMP:20260507T165643Z
UID:e42e0b6243245fe221a2bd4afd7296f7c70622ad05a992d66cd1a38f
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Meret Aeppli\, Tenure Track Assistant professor\, Soil Biog
 eochemistry Laboratory (SOIL)\, ALPOLE-Sion\nAbstract:\nElectron transfer 
 reactions are central to the transformation of energy in the environment a
 nd underpin most biogeochemical cycles on Earth. In soil\, one of the main
  drivers of carbon cycling is the activity of heterotrophic organisms that
  utilize the energy stored in soil organic matter by coupling the oxidatio
 n of organic carbon to the reduction of electron acceptors. Yet\, our unde
 rstanding of this process is incomplete and the response of the soil carbo
 n pool to climate change remains one of the primary sources of uncertainty
  in projections of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.\nHere\, I di
 scuss how we can track electron transfer reactions and relate them to bioe
 nergetic descriptors to elucidate the processes and mechanisms that contro
 l soil heterotrophic respiration. First\, I present an approach to charact
 erize the redox properties of iron minerals\, which are abundant electron 
 acceptors in many soils. Second\, I show how the kinetics of electron tran
 sfer and carbon dioxide production in soil incubations are related to the 
 redox properties of electron acceptors. Third\, I demonstrate how we can q
 uantify electron transfer to iron in a simulated soil system with groundwa
 ter flow that includes transport of microorganisms and organic carbon subs
 trates. Future work aims to to expand on the presented concepts by integra
 ting electron transfer properties of soil organic matter into bioenergetic
  frameworks.\n\nShort biography:\nMeret Aeppli joined EPFL as a tenure tra
 ck assistant professor and head of the soil biogeochemistry laboratory (SO
 IL) in September 2022. Her group aims to understand the fundamental princi
 ples and processes that govern the biogeochemical cycling of key elements 
 in soil. Meret was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in the dep
 artment of Earth System Science from 2019 to 2022 where she studied biogeo
 chemical controls on carbon turnover in soils and sediments. She holds a B
 achelor's and a Master's degree in Environmental Sciences from ETH Zurich 
 and obtained her PhD from ETH Zurich in 2018. She was awarded the ETH Meda
 l for her dissertation work in which she developed novel approaches to qua
 ntify the redox properties and reactivities of iron minerals
LOCATION:GC B1 10 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==GC%20B1%2010 https://epfl.zo
 om.us/j/63802032408
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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