Dr. Daniel Wasner

Additional information

I currently work as a PostDoc in the soil resources team. I aim to investigate the importance of climatic controls, soil physicochemistry and microbial community composition in constraining carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycles in soils. In my work I try to link soil microbial processes, C stabilization and nutrient availability with soil physicochemical properties, which are shaped over long time scales in the course of soil formation.

To this end, I apply methods that quantify relevant pools, gross and net fluxes, enzymatic activities and soil physicochemical parameters. I currently work with various and contrasting types of soil systems: short-term experimental manipulation of tropical soils, long-term transplant experiments in alpine soils and a large geoclimatic gradient of temperate grassland soils.

Before this PostDoc, I did my master’s degree in Ecology at the University of Vienna with an emphasis on soil P dynamics, and my PhD in the soil resources group at ETH Zürich, focusing on the large-scale controls of soil organic carbon dynamics in temperate grasslands (see the “Chilean Grassland Gradient” project in the research section of our group’s website!). For me, the fascination with research in biogeochemistry lies in the possibility to make invisible processes visible. I find it exciting to quantify, manipulate and compare these processes in search of fundamental mechanisms that might help us get our head around the incredibly complex world that surrounds us!