Current members

Baptiste Hulin – PhD candidate

Baptiste’s thesis deals with root derived carbon quantification, including rhizodeposition, as a tool to store carbon in top soil and sub soil on the long term. He is particularly looking at root derived carbon from different plant type or environmental drivers.

Johanne Lebrun Thauront – PhD candidate

Johanne’s project focusses on pyrogenic carbon dynamics at the landscape scale. She particularly works on the watershed of Naizin, Brittany. She is also developing new methods to quantify and qualify pyrogenic matter in soils.

Marcus Schiedung – PhD candidate

Marcus’s research focuses on pyrogenic carbon in soils, it persistence and stocks, in particular in artic systems. He is also interested in processes like the solublisation of PyC, which is one of the processes linking terrestrial and aquatic systems.

Severin Bellè – PhD candidate

Severin’s project concerns Pyrogenic carbon age and quantities in soils, in tropical systems. He focuses on pyrogenic carbon transfer from land to rivers through erosion processes, and study the drivers influencing these dynamics.

Simon Bowring – Post doc researcher

Simon’s work aims at integrating pyrogenic carbon in the land surface model ORCHIDEE. He is adding this component as an organic remaining of fires and as a new compartment of the soil carbon.

Former members

PhD candidates

Pierre Stevenel – combined cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the context of tropical soils.

Moritz Reisser – Pyrogenic organic matter: quantification and characterisation across ecosystems

Beatriz Gonzalez Dominguez – Soil organic matter vulnerability in swiss soils

Juliane Hirte – Carbon rhizodeposition in different cropping systems

Cordula Friedli – Root architecture, root decomposition and carbon input to the soil under drought conditions

Mirjam Studer – Stabilisation of root carbon using multi-isotopes labelling

Bernardo Maestrini – C and N budget of Pyrogenic Carbon in the Soil under Increased Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition

Nimisha Singh –  Fate of Pyrogenic Carbon in the Soil under Increased Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition

Post-doc researchers

Mirjam Studer  – vulnerability of organic matter in plant-soil systems

Bernardo Maestrini – Pyrogenic carbon degradation in artic systems

Dolores Asensio – Effect of biodiversity on root-derived carbon

Msc students

Milena Mächler – rhizodeposition from raps, barley and oat, as a function of the atmospheric CO2.

Michelle Giust – How the combination of biochar from rice husk and sugar cane and different organic fertilisers (Biochar based fertilizers) modify soil chemical, physical and biological parameters.

Ursina Morgenthaler – Root architecture and rhizodeposition with biochar based fertilisers additions in tropical soils from Karnataka, India.

Florencio Zanitti – soil parameters to soil water conductivity at saturation, in the context of land use change in Madagascar.

Miriam Steinmann – importance of intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams on the flow of water, nutrient and carbon in the swiss Alps.

Nadia Huber – Effect of soil and climate parameters on barley rhizodeposition

Severin Bellè – Biochar systems: the use of organic wastes in south India

Mario Lombardi – The stabilization of root-derived vs shoot derived in soils

Jessica Abt – Root decomposition in 16 different soils

Quirina Mertz – Wheat and maize growth and impact on soil under 2070 climate scenario

Lukas Gmunder – Fragmentation processes of charcoal in soils

Julia Siegrist – Meta-analysis of alternative agricultural practices on soil properties

Mirjam Müller – Soil Organic Matter Persistence in Swiss Forest Mineral Soils – Assessment of SOM Vulnerability by Density Fractionation

Annika Tella –  Modeling the effects of climate and land use change on soil and vegetation C dynamics in Switzerland with CoupModel

Tobias Pfenninger –  Change of soil organic matter composition after spruce afforestation – A density fractionation study conducted in a subalpine region in Switzerland

Stefanie Müller – Indigenous knowledge-based identification of adaption barriers regarding a sustainable implementation of a biochar system in Karnataka

Anette Brem – Effects of biochar on root growth

Matthias Reichmutt  – Decomposition and water retention of biochars and hydrothermal chars –

Mirjam Studer – 2H, 18O, 13C tracing in a soil-plant system

Barbara Pichler – Biochar effects on vineyard soils in Valais

Pascal Hendgartner – Solubility of pyrogenic compounds into the soil dissolved organic matter