Seawater stores as much carbon in the form of dissolved organic matter (DOM) as there is carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Due to its great size, shifts in reactivity of the marine DOM pool strongly impact global biogeochemical cycles. ​Microbial metabolisms in the oceans are directly responsible for the production, degradation and recycling of DOM, but little is known about how the complex pool of DOM shapes microbial communities and viceversa.

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At the "Biogeochemistry & Climate Change" group we combine state-of-art techniques in analytical chemistry and microbial ecology to experimentally investigate biogeochemical interactions between microbes and DOM in the context of deoxygenation and warming, two of the major side effects of climate change in the ocean.