Candidates should have master’s degree in biology for this scholarships
Scholarship Description: The vacancy is at the Community and Conservation Ecology group at the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies (CEES), Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Groningen. The research of our group focuses on understanding the structure, dynamics and diversity of ecological communities in both temperate and tropical ecosystems. Important processes that we study are: spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity, plant-plant & plant-herbivore interactions, herbivore-predator interactions, plant dispersal, food web analysis, neutral biodiversity theory and speciation theory.
Ecologists are well aware of the importance of interactions between plants (competition, facilitation) for the structure and functioning of ecological communities. However, we are only beginning to understand how these plant-plant interactions change with increased abiotic stress (drought, flooding, salinity) or biotic stress (herbivory). Even more challenging is the question how both types of stress (abiotic and biotic) together affect the interactions between plants species, and what the consequences are for the spatial configuration, diversity and stability of ecological communities. These questions are presently also highly relevant in the light of the global changes in land-use and climate that pose severe stress to our ecosystems. The aim of this PhD project is to come up with clear hypotheses on how plant-plant interactions change along environmental gradients consisting of abiotic and biotic stress, and to test these hypotheses via a series of descriptive and experimental (field) studies. Field work will be mainly performed at the salt marshes, coastal dunes and intertidal mudflats of Schiermonnikoog, where our well-equipped field lab is permanently available. Additional lab experiments can be performed at our excellent research facilities (green houses, growth cabinets, common garden experiments) at the University of Groningen.
Scholarship Application Deadline: 01-11-2010