Research

In a world facing accelerating climate change, we urgently need to quantify and understand the biological processes that define volatile emissions from ecosystems to the atmosphere. These processes are the result of complex interactions between organisms and their environment, which are poorly understood and difficult to unravel. Changes in the environment will inevitably alter the volatile emissions from ecosystems and volatile emissions will in turn affect the climate via impacts on atmospheric chemistry and aerosol formation. Aerosols affect the Earth’s radiation budget both directly by scattering solar radiation and indirectly by contributing to cloud formation.

In VOLT, we will exploit the most advanced instrumentation and methodology in laboratory and field-based approaches targeting specific biological processes producing and consuming volatiles from microsite to ecosystem scales. Volatile measurements will be linked to our detailed understanding of the biology in oceans, lakes, cryptogams, soil-plant-continuums, and ice. We aim to provide groundbreaking insights into the complex biological interactions controlling the exchange of volatiles between ecosystems and the atmosphere. Our overarching hypothesis is that microorganisms are key sources and sinks of volatiles across ecosystems and that volatile emissions and their effects on current and future climates can only be quantified, if we understand the interactions between the organisms and their environment. 

In addition to the core research funded by Danish National Research Foundation, VOLT hosts research projects within ecosystem-atmosphere exchange of volatile and organismal interactions funded by external sources.