PhD Opportunity: Stabilized carbon in Grasslands Management
A PhD student is required for a project on the nature of stabilized carbon in soil under grasslands management, using 13C labelling techniques and molecular analyses. The project comes under the research programme “Management Options for Increasing Soil Carbon under Grasslands”, funded through the Global Partnership for Livestock Emission Research (NZ’s international research fund for GHG mitigation from pastoral livestock). The position is based at the INRA Versailles-Grignon, France.
Project Title: Quality, quantity and vulnerability of soil carbon stocks of grasslands soils under different management practices
The proposed research will be carried out under the framework of an international project between the National Institute for Agricultural Research (France) and the Landcare Research Institute (New Zealand). The objective of this international project is to evaluate the impact of intensification of grassland management on the dynamics of soil organic matter (SOM) in different pedoclimatic contexts. The PhD work will contribute towards the understanding of management impacts through the assessment of their influence on molecular transformations occurring during soil organic matter degradation and stabilisation processes. The conceptual approach includes an evaluation of degradation and stabilisation processes at field scale. We will study long-term experimental sites situated in France and in New Zealand and also use 13C labelling techniques. The results obtained during the PhD will contribute to ameliorate process information to be used in a biogeochemical model (CenW), which will allow for evaluating the implications of management practices on soil C dynamics and composition in the long-term, as well as resilience of the system to global change. The PhD thesis will provide an answer to these questions by going beyond global C stocks assessment through molecular analyses providing information on the nature and origin of SOM pools, which constitutes a major advance in the research field.
Apply with:
- A cover letter including a brief summary of research interests and experience
- Your CV and transcripts
- Contact information for 3 referees
Send by 3 May to:
Dr Abad Chabbi, [email protected]
OR
Dr. Cornelia Rumpel, [email protected]
