Planning Calendar

MicroPerm Workshop (8-10 November 2010, Potsdam, Germany)

The workshop of the MicroPerm project will be held in Potsdam, Germany in November 2010. The workshop is made possible through a grant of the International Council for Science (ICSU) applied for by the International Permafrost Association (IPA) and the International Union for Geological Sciences.

The MicroPerm Workshop is supported by the International Council for Science (ISCU), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS), the International Union of Geodesy and Geology (IUGG) and the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA).

The workshop is open to anyone interested in attending, and all attendees are invited to present a poster. The abstract submission deadline is Friday, 10 September 2010. To register for the workshop, please complete the form at the following link:

Application form

For additional questions related to the workshop, contact:
Dirk Wagner
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: +49 331 288-2159

PYRN members, contact: Susanne Liebner Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Lars Ganzert Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Phone: +49 331 288-2162

The MicroPerm project

MicroPerm is a project that seeks to establish a network of scientists working in the field of permafrost microbiology.To do so, MicroPerm is leading the establishment of a panarctic study programme on permafrost microbiology under the auspices of the International Permafrost Association. This programme is based on a networking platform which started in 2010. MicroPerm is an activity of the IPA Working Group on Planetary Permafrost and Astrobiology.

Rationale and objectives

The polar regions play a key role in the Earth’s climate system for two main reasons. First, global warming is predicted to be most pronounced at high latitudes. Second, one third of the global carbon pool is stored in ecosystems of the same northern region. The consequences of a warming of the upper permafrost are potentially overwhelming, and could lead to a dramatic increase in the microbial activity and carbon decomposition in permafrost environments, with subsequent release of greenhouse gases. Microbiologists have largely focused on the local scale, trying to link local climate variables, permafrost characteristics and microbial diversity, but there does not exist a circum-arctic research network or infrastructure. Permafrost microbiology is practically a new field of science which attempts to assess the interrelations between permafrost features and temperature and the abundance and the diversity of microbial communities, their genetic resources, their function in regard to material fluxes and their reaction to environmental changes. MicroPerm is a project that seeks to establish a network of scientists working in the field of permafrost microbiology. MicroPerm will organize a process leading to the establishment of a pan-arctic study programme on permafrost microbiology under the auspices of the International Permafrost Association (IPA). This programme will be based on a networking platform which will be ignited during the 2nd MicroPerm Workshop in Potsdam in November. After a first MicroPerm Workshop during the Third International Conference on Permafrost on Svalbard, the second workshop will gather the leaders in the field of permafrost microbiology and qualify the framework of the programme. It will then define the specific objectives of the programme, with the primary goal to establish a data exchange platform compliant with existing standards and embedded in global scientific and observing efforts.