The belowground production of CO₂ in soil represents an important terrestrial carbon source. Being correlated with soil temperature, soil respiration is expected to further intensify climate change in a warming environment. In the Alpine area, soil respiration is expected to change considerably and in a patchy manner, reflecting the effects of climatic conditions, but also of invertebrate and plant root presence/activity. 

The grand ambition of ALSORES is to provide in-depth knowledge and quantitative information on how microbial and invertebrate communities are influenced by altitude and climate change, and on how microbial activity shapes soil respiration.

Thereby, I aim to further test the advantages of studying intracellular DNA (iDNA) as opposed to the generally studied environmental DNA (eDNA) when it comes to microbial activity estimation. Being composed by considerable amounts of extracellular DNA, eDNA does not only contain information about intact and active cells (intracellular DNA, iDNA) but also about extracellular DNA from species that might not be recently present. Here, I will study microbial agents actually shaping soil respiration by extracting iDNA, and by comparing the results to eDNA- as well as RNA-based results.

Summing up, the main aims of ALSORES are to (I) define climate change-related alterations in soil respiration (II) jointly examine soil invertebrates and microorganisms and (III) test iDNA quantification as a proxy for microbial activity and SR.