Research output per year
Research output per year
Personal profile
Short presentation
I am mainly working on the fate of organic matter (C and N cycling) in soils, from the plant input via roots and decaying litter in rhizosphere and detritusphere over microbial transformations to particulate and mineral-associated soil organic matter. I increasingly focus my work on the formation of soil structure as affected by the organic matter allocation in the rhizosphere, the soil volume directly influenced by root activity. A special interest of work relates to soil functioning in pristine polar environments in the Arctic (C storage in Cryosols) and in Antarctica (nutrient and water availability) and soil structure development under different climate in Chile. In my research I combine quantitative approaches (e.g. density fractionation, elemental and isotopic analyses, lab incubations) with state of the art chemical (GC-MS, NMR spectroscopy) and spectromicroscopic (SEM, NanoSIMS) techniques.
Current research
"RhizoTraits - Rhizosphere traits enhancing yield resilience to drought in modern cropping systems" - research consortium lead by Johanna Pausch (University of Bayreuth) in the frame of the German BMBF call „Plant roots and soil ecosystems: Importance of the rhizosphere for bioeconomy” 2020-2024
"Microbial Engineers – Drivers of Earth Surface Development and Stabilization" - project within the German Priority program 'EarthShape - Earth Surface Shaping by Biota' www.earthshape.net , 2019-2022
"Elucidating the 3D chemical and physical architecture of soil microstructures by combining spectromicroscopic techniques and developing of novel computational approaches" - cooperation with Carmen Hoeschen of TU Munich and Jean-Nicolas Audinot of the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology, 2019-2021
„Microbial-mediated soil formation under simulated environmental conditions in maritime Antarctica” - project in the frame of the German DFG priority program SPP1158 (”Antarctic Research with Comparable Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas”), 2016-2020
"Self differentiation of soil aggregation and organic carbon allocation induced by plant and microbial activity in the rhizosphere" - project in the frame of the German DFG priority program SPP 2089 (“Rhizosphere Spatiotemporal Organisation – a Key to Rhizosphere Functions”), www.ufz.de/spp-rhizosphere/ , 2018-2020
"The role of clay minerals and metal oxides for organic matter stabilization in highly weathered tropical soils” - joint proposal together with Karsten Kalbitz and Karl-Heinz Feger, Dresden and Robert Mikutta, Halle/Saale, 2018-2020
“Rhizosphere as driver of subsoil organic matter distribution and composition” - project in the frame of the German DFG research unit FOR1806 (SUBSOM "The forgotten part of carbon cycling: Soil organic matter storage and turnover in subsoils"), www.subsom.de, 2018-2020
"Plant-microbial interactions as drivers of organic matter formation and decomposition" - Collaborator with Jens Arne Subke, Stirling (UK) and Francesca Cotrufo, Fort Collins (USA), 2018-2020
External positions
Associate Professor, Technical University Munich
2016 → 2019
Assistant Professor, Technical University Munich
2010 → 2015
Visiting Scientist, PostDoc, Pennsylvania State University
May 2009 → Oct 2009
PhD student, Technical University Munich
2005 → 2009
Keywords
- Faculty of Science
- Soil Science
- Soil Organic Matter
- Rhizosphere
- Permafrost
- Arctic
- Antarctica
- NanoSIMS
- NMR spectroscopy
- mineral associated organic matter
- particulate organic matter
- Electron microscopy
- Carbon storage
- Carbon sequestration
- Carbon cycling
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or
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Particulate organic matter as a functional soil component for persistent soil organic carbon
Witzgall, K., Vidal, A., Schubert, D. I., Höschen, C., Schweizer, S. A., Buegger, F., Pouteau, V., Chenu, C. & Mueller, C. W., 5 Jul 2021, In: Nature Communications. 12, 1, 10 p., 4115.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)160 Downloads (Pure) -
Root-induced fungal growth triggers macroaggregation in forest subsoils
Baumert, V. L., Forstner, S. J., Zethof, J. H. T., Vogel, C., Heitkötter, J., Schulz, S., Kögel-Knabner, I. & Mueller, C. W., Jun 2021, In: Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 157, 14 p., 108244.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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Detritivore conversion of litter into faeces accelerates organic matter turnover
Joly, F-X., Coq, S., Coulis, M., David, J-F., Hättenschwiler, S., Mueller, C. W., Prater, I. & Subke, J-A., 11 Nov 2020, In: Communications Biology . 3, 1, 9 p., 660.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile69 Citations (Scopus)48 Downloads (Pure) -
4D Surface Reconstructions to Study Microscale Structures and Functions in Soil Biogeochemistry
Ost, A. D., Wu, T., Höschen, C., Mueller, C. W., Wirtz, T. & Audinot, J-N., 6 Jul 2021, In: Environmental Science & Technology. 55, 13, p. 9384-9393 10 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile11 Citations (Scopus)82 Downloads (Pure) -
Consistent prokaryotic community patterns along the radial root axis of two Zea mays L. landraces across two distinct field locations
Tyborski, N., Koehler, T., Steiner, F. A., Tung, S-Y., Wild, A. J., Carminati, A., Mueller, C. W., Vidal, A., Wolfrum, S., Pausch, J. & Lueders, T., 2024, In: Frontiers in Microbiology. 15, 16 p., 1386476.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile2 Downloads (Pure) -
Decoding the rhizodeposit-derived carbon's journey into soil organic matter
Teixeira, P. P. C., Vidal, A., Teixeira, A. P. M., Souza, I. F., Hurtarte, L. C. C., Silva, D. H. S., Almeida, L. F. J., Buegger, F., Hammer, E. C., Jansa, J., Mueller, C. W. & Silva, I. R., 2024, In: Geoderma. 443, 11 p., 116811.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile5 Citations (Scopus)6 Downloads (Pure) -
Depth-dependent responses of soil organic carbon under nitrogen deposition
Hu, Y., Deng, Q., Kätterer, T., Olesen, J. E., Ying, S. C., Ochoa-Hueso, R., Mueller, C. W., Weintraub, M. N. & Chen, J., 2024, In: Global Change Biology. 30, 3, 13 p., e17247.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile6 Citations (Scopus)6 Downloads (Pure) -
Dominance of particulate organic carbon in top mineral soils in cold regions
García-Palacios, P., Bradford, M. A., Benavente-Ferraces, I., de Celis, M., Delgado-Baquerizo, M., García-Gil, J. C., Gaitán, J. J., Goñi-Urtiaga, A., Mueller, C. W., Panettieri, M., Rey, A., Sáez-Sandino, T., Schuur, E. A. G., Sokol, N. W., Tedersoo, L. & Plaza, C., 2024, In: Nature Geoscience. 17, p. 145–150Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
File7 Citations (Scopus)12 Downloads (Pure)