PhD project 7 (MANTEL recruitment)

The Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) is the largest freshwater ecology research institute in Germany. It is a member of the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. and the Leibniz-Association (www.wgl.de). The FVB manages 8 large research institutes in Berlin that have close links to all three universities in the German capital. IGB offers excellent laboratory and field facilities for interdisciplinary research, large-scale experimental facilities, and long-term research programs and data sets.

PhD project 7

(MANTEL recruitment)

Link: https://www.dkit.ie/mantel/mantel-recruitment-phd-projects

Determination of critical thresholds for lake ecosystem resilience from long-term HFM data.

Objectives: long-term changes are often of a non-linear nature, surpassing critical thresholds and leaving systems in a different state, often with temperature as a main forcing for a cascade of abrupt environmental changes. We know little about the temporal scales we need to consider for detecting change in resilience and how extreme events contribute to long-term trends and variability in ecosystem functionality. This PhD will use high frequency measurement (HFM) data to study the effects of episodic events on algal mass and lake metabolism as a proxy of ecosystem functionality, using the Metabolic Theory of Ecology as a universal concept. The PhD will test how general anthropogenic pressure acts to erode ecosystem resilience and brings the system closer to a critical transition. High taxonomic resolution long-term data will allow us to study the role of episodic events in the context of known long-term trends (30+ years) and short term recovery, and link overlapping effects of climate and other anthropogenic induced responses to overall ecosystem functionality. The overall objective is to quantify critical thresholds of the amplitude and frequency of episodic events affecting algal development and test whether generally available proxies can be used to capture human interferences with lake ecosystem functionality and resilience.

This student will be primarily based in Berlin at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Germany, supervised by Prof. Rita Adrian, and will be co-supervised by and spend study time with Prof. Bas Ibelings, University of Geneva. The PhD will be a double degree awarded by the Free University of Berlin and University of Geneva.

We are looking for a highly motivated early stage researcher with interest in aquatic ecology, particularly in long-term ecological research in the context of global climate change impacts on lake ecosystems. Specifically we are interested in the effects of episodic events such as storms, heat waves or heavy rain events on lakes from lake physics all the way up to plankton communities and lake metabolism. The research will be based on existing decadal long-term data of lakes around the globe and our prime case study site Müggelsee in Berlin, Germany. It will be primarily based on statistical or deterministic modelling.

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

Academic qualifications: Candidates must have an MSc in Ecology, statistics, bioinformatics, or similar.

Technical Skills required: Good programming skills in typical scientific programming languages (e.g., Matlab, Python, R, etc.). Strong skills in statistical modelling; capability in handling large data sets are essential.

English language: Any applicant whose first language is other than English must have certified English language proficiency of at least IELTS 6.5 or equivalent.

Contact for more information: Rita Adrian adrian@igb-berlin.de

Please upload your complete application via IGB’s online-job-market at http://www.igb-berlin.de/job-offers.html (button “Apply online”) until 31st January 2017.