Isotope course

Next course: 25 - 29 January 2010

Stable Isotopes in Ecology

Lecture content:

Introduction

• Stable Isotopes in daily life
• Definitions
• Historical background
• Natural abundance
• Determination of isotope ratios: methods and instrumentation
• Isotopic effects, mechanisms causing isotopic effects (abiotic und biotic)

Carbon isotopes in plants

• Atmospheric Carbon
• Fractionation during C-assimilation and incorporation
• Intercellular CO2-concentration and discrimination: physiological background
• Water Use Efficiency
• Environmental impact on C-uptake and its consequences o the isotope ratio
• Stress and the response of plants affecting the isotopic ratio
• C-Flux from the leaf to the soil
• Isotope distribution in soils

Oxygen and Deuterium in the plant

• Isotopic composition based on the origin of the water: Rain, sources, rivers, etc.
• The meteoric waterline
• Deuterium Excess
• Water vapor in the atmosphere
• Water uptake by the plants: sources, mechanisms
• Tracing the water sources in the plants
• Water loss in plants and ecosystems and its isotopic consequences
• Environmental impacts and its consequences

Plants and nitrogen

• N2-fixation
• Microbial fractionation and washout mechanisms
• Nutrient (Nitrogen) transfer in plants and ecosystem
• Atmospheric N-deposition

Applications of stable isotopes in research and daily life:

Some selected examples • Food integrity
• Forensics
• Origin and identity of samples
• Breath and hair samples etc.

Lecture-notes see left bar under "internal" (password-protected)

How to reach PSI

For more information, contact Rolf Siegwolf or Matthias Saurer