Subarctic invertebrate and plant ecology (internship for Msc and Bsc students)
Internships on Subarctic invertebrate and plant ecology(For Msc and Bsc students)
Eva Krab (Hans Cornelissen and Matty Berg)
Systems Ecology, Dept. of Ecological Sciences, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences,
VU University Amsterdam
Office: De Boelelaan 1085, A109
Email: eva.krab@falw.vu.nl
Tel. 020-5983611
Northern peatlands have been globally important accumulators of carbon as plant litter and older soil organic matter. As climate changes, the decomposition rates of these peatlands and consequently their soil respiration are likely to increase. In other words, CO2 emissions from northern peatlands might increase, giving feedback to global warming.
This change might be caused not only by higher metabolic rates due to temperature rise and effects of increased precipitation, but also by changes in the diversity of the microbial community and soil fauna, the actual decomposers.The latter only contribute less than 10% to the total soil metabolism, but soil invertebrates have a great impact on the decomposition process. However the actual impact of soil mesofauna in subarctic peatlands has hardly been investigated.
My project deals with diversity changes in soil mesofauna (represented by springtails and oribatid mites) in the subarctic (Abisko Swedish Lapland). Does diversity change due to global warming? And if the diversity changes, what are the impacts on ecosystem processes such as decomposition? To answer these questions I study interactions between soil invertebrates and their substrate, dead plant material.
A number of internships for both Msc and Bsc students are possible. Subjects include springtail and mite diversity studies, climate manipulation experiments, and stable isotope studies.
This means that the work you will be doing will include: collecting soil animals, learning the species (and thus some microscope work) but also collecting soil or plant samples and measuring stable isotope ratios of plant and/or animal material. Fieldwork in Abisko (in the summer/spring months May-August) is possible for Msc students.
Students that are interested in Science communication have the option to be creative by writing or making video’s that are posted on the VPRO research weblog ‘De hete adem van het veen’ www.pooljaar.nl/veen. However these activities should be combined and related to your experimental work.
So if you are interested in Fieldwork in Lapland, Animal AND Plant Ecology, Stable Isotope Research, Science Communication, or all of the above, please contact me!
Linked site: http://blog.1800flowers.com/international/subarctic-invertebrate-ua/
