Global geochemical cycling – a matter of microbial economy

The actions of microbes drive the biogeochemical element cycles, a complicated metabolic network that is the basis of all life. About 100 years ago, microbiology's founding fathers have drafted an architecture for this network which has been refined ever since. However, even today we cannot predict the system as a whole and are clueless as to how this system will respond to increasing anthropogenic inputs such as fertilization and fossil fuel burning. Our aim is to unravel the laws of microbial competition and collaboration that connect the individual nodes of the planetary metabolic network.