PhD Candidate for Drivers and Consequences of Changing Plant-Microbe Interactions in Peatlands

Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon – twice as much as all the world’s forests. However, rapid climate change is affecting this storage function. As a PhD Candidate, you will focus on how the climate and environment affect plant-soil biotic interactions in peatlands. Your research can further highlight the importance of protecting these areas and their vital role as a natural carbon sink. 

Metre by metre, peatlands store more carbon (C) than any other terrestrial ecosystem. The rapidly changing climate is, however, affecting the C storing function of peatlands. Peatland carbon dynamics pivot around processes - primarily production and decomposition - that are modulated by above- and belowground biotic communities. While the importance of links between plant and soil biotic communities on ecosystem processes is recognised, little is known about the role of these links in maintaining key ecosystem processes. Moreover,

our recent work

shows that plant and microbial communities do not respond in parallel to changes in enviro-climatic conditions, resulting in a rewiring of plant-soil biotic networks. How such rewiring plays out on C dynamics remains unresolved. 

In this PhD project, you will unravel how climate and the environment affect plant-soil biotic interactions. Specifically, you will quantify the functional role of plant-soil biota interactions in peatlands and assess how these interactions are affected by environmental and climatic conditions. In the light of this, you will identify core network interactions, their temporal stability, and enviro-climatological thresholds at which rewired network interactions aggravate important ecosystem processes, particularly carbon dynamics. The above list of duties is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed in this project. It is not construed to be an exhaustive list, and ample opportunity will be given to explore novel ideas and to break new ground in the field of peatland ecology and plant-soil interactions. In addition to the tasks as outlined above you will have a 10% teaching load.