BECC - Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate - is a new strategic research initiative in cooperation between Lund University and the University of Gothenburg. In Lund it is hosted by the Centre for Environmental and Climate Research (CEC) at the Faculty of Science. BECC strives for a better understanding of the impacts of climate change and land use decisions on terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity, addressing the consequences of ecosystem changes for human beings and socio-economic systems. The vision of BECC is to advance interdisciplinary research approaches that contribute to the sustainable management of ecosystems and biodiversity in a rapidly changing world.
More information can be found at http://www.cec.lu.se/forskning/becc
Job assignments
Many of the biogeochemical processes that are critical to the functioning of ecosystems and their services to society are mediated by microorganisms. This includes carbon (C) sequestration, greenhouse gas production and mobilization of nutrients (N and P). Whether terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems will capture, store or release C and nutrients is highly dependent on how changing climate conditions and management including adaptation or mitigation strategies affect microbial processes and community structure. However, the parameterizations of microbial processes are highly simplified in ecosystem models, typically in the form of temperature- and moisture-dependent kinetic equations with empirically-determined rate constants. The abundance, diversity and interactions among functional groups, though doubtless important determinants of ecosystem biogeochemical responses to climate and atmospheric changes, are seldom represented explicitly,
reducing the accuracy of current model simulations of future changes. The overall aim of the BECC program ?Climate, land use and biogeochemical cycles? is to develop tools and frameworks for connecting data and models at scales from genomes to ecosystems over which the diversity of microbial communities could influence ecosystem services like release of greenhouse gases, nutrient leakage and C storage.
The candidate for this position is expected to be involved in several ongoing research projects that examine how changing climate conditions and managements including adaptation and mitigation strategies affect microbial diversity and the store and release of C and nutrients in forest and agricultural soils. The candidate will take an active part in applying molecular methods based on 454 sequencing for assessing the biodiversity of microbial communities in soils. An important part of the multidisciplinary efforts is to develop methods (like metagenomic sequence analysis and data assimilation techniques) for incorporating molecular biodiversity data to ecosystem models for improving the predictive power of process models.
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