Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

Our research is dedicated to the study of global biogeochemical cycles describing the interactions between the biosphere, the atmosphere, the geosphere and the entire climate system. 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 ecosystems and climate at regional to global scales. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen - these four elements which are essential for life on earth - are continuously subject to biological, chemical and physical changes. Bound in varying chemical combinations, they are released together with other organic compounds by the biosphere and are tranported and distributed throughout the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Finally, they may find their way back to the biosphere to be converted again by various organisms. Since these transformations are interlinked and controlled by both the biology of the organisms as well as chemic...