Research Associate for the Project “Estimating effects of microbial functional diversity on marsh ecosystem carbon balance” § 28 Subsection 3 HmbHG

Duties include academic services in the project named above. Research associates may also pursue independent research and further academic qualifications.

General information on the Research Training Group:

The overall mission of the Research Training Group 2530 (RTG 2530) is to fill existing knowledge gaps on biota-mediated effects on estuarine C cycling under current conditions and with respect to global change scenarios. Embedded into the inspiring academic environment of Universität Hamburg, RTG 2530 provides Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers an outstanding platform for their career development. The RTG has been established by an interdisciplinary group of 15 Principal Researchers with scientific backgrounds ranging from terrestrial and marine ecology, via geoscience to microbiology and molecular plant and animal biology. The RTG is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG).

Specific information on the research idea of the position:

The doctoral researcher will be a member of RTG 2530 and the lab of Ecological Modelling and investigate the complex relations between carbon fluxes in marsh ecosystems and plant-microbe interactions, with a focus on microbial functional diversity. The project will address the questions, how variation in functional traits of soil microbes affects plant communities and the overall ecosystem carbon balance, and how climate change may alter these relations. To this end, a process-based marsh ecosystem model will be further developed to include diverse microbial functional types and their interactions with plant processes, such as root oxygen loss or root exudation, thereby including potential shifts in microbial communities that may strongly alter carbon cycling.