The Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry is located in

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was created in 1997, and moved into new buildings 2002. It is one of 84 institutes in the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

(Max Planck Gesellschaft).

Scientific profile

The research at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry is dedicated to the study of global

biogeochemical cycle A biogeochemical cycle, or more generally a cycle of matter, is the movement and transformation of chemical elements and compounds between living organisms, the atmosphere, and the Earth's crust. Major biogeochemical cycles include the carbon cyc ...

s and their long-term interactions with the

biosphere The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to mat ...

, the

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

, the

geosphere There are several conflicting usages of geosphere, variously defined. In Aristotelian physics, the term was applied to four spherical ''natural places'', concentrically nested around the center of the Earth, as described in the lectures '' Ph ...

and the entire

climate system Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere ( ...

. We aim to better understand how living organisms - including humans - exchange basic resources such as water, carbon, nutrients, and energy with their environment and how this affects

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

s and

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

at regional to global scales.

Departments and research groups

The institute has three departments, with each department consisting of several research groups, and sometimes additional project groups. '
Biogeochemical Processes
( Susan E. Trumbore)
Molecular Biogeochemistry
(Gerd Gleixner)
Theoretical Ecosystem Ecology
(Carlos A. Sierra)
Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO)Dryland Ecosystem Processes (Jianbei Huang)Soil Biogeochemistry
(Marion Schrumpf)
Plant Allocation
(Henrik Hartmann)
Carbon and water cycling in a changing Amazon
( Susan E. Trumbore) '
Biogeochemical Integration
(Markus Reichstein) Full research groups
Model-Data Integration
(Nuno Carvalhais)
Global Diagnostic Modelling
(Martin Jung)
Bio.AI
(Jana Wäldchen)
Atmosphere-Biosphere Coupling, Climate and Causality
(Alexander Winkler)
Eco-Meteorology
(Sung-Ching Lee)
Soil Biogeochemistry
(Marion Schrumpf) Project groups
Machine Learning for Hydrological and Earth Systems
(Shijie Jiang)
Ecosystem Function from Earth Observation
(Gregory Duveiller)
Cross-Scale Terrestrial Ecophysiology
(Jacob Nelson)
Modeling Interactions in Soil Systems
(Bernhard Ahrens)
Satellite terrestrial ecosystem large-scale analysis
(Sophia Walther)
Adapting Machine Learning for Earth Systems
(Christian Reimers) '
Biogeochemical Signals
(Sönke Zaehle)
Airborne trace gas measurements and mesoscale modelling (ATM)
(Christoph Gerbig)
Atmosphere-Biosphere Signal Attribution in the Tropics
(Santiago Botía)
Climate and Plant Ecophysiology
(Manon Sabot)
Inverse data-driven estimation (IDE)
(Christian Rödenbeck)
Integrating surface-atmosphere Exchange Processes Across Scales - Modeling and Monitoring (IPAS)
(Mathias Goeckede)
Terrestrial Biosphere Modelling (TBM)
(Sönke Zaehle)

Independent research groups

In addition, there are a number of independent research groups that are not integrated into the departments.
Biospheric Theory and Modelling
(Axel Kleidon)
Functional Biogeography
(Jens Kattge) *Emeritus group
Carbon Balance, Ecosystem Research and Forest Management
(Ernst-Detlef Schulze) *Emeritus group
Biogeochemical Systems
(Martin Heimann)

References

External links

Homepage of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Laboratories in Germany

Biogeochemistry Biogeochemistry is the Branches of science, scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemistry, chemical, physics, physical, geology, geological, and biology, biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natu ...

Earth science research institutes Research institutes established in 1997 Biogeochemistry {{geochem-stub