Thesis subject

Examining soil biodiversity in natural systems and their role in plant vegetation dynamics

Soils contain most biodiversity on Earth and drive major functions such as global elemental cycles and plant community changes. However, we still miss most knowledge on the true biodiversity present in soil and the functional importance of most soil biota especially in soil multifunctionality.

You can be part to decipher this big black box of soil biodiversity. For that various options are possible:

  1. Cultivate and describe novel soil biodiversity using microscopy- and sequencing-based approaches
  2. Functionally determine the importance of diverse soil biota and their interactions in microcosms and greenhouse experiments
  3. Decipher soil biodiversity in natural systems using microbiome analyses and state-of-the-art omics sequencing tools to understand what is present in soil
  4. Optimise, compare and standardise methods to study soil biodiversity including cultivation, microscopy and omics including artificial intelligence (AI)
  5. Test the role of distinct parts of soil biodiversity for plant performance, particularly focusing on natural systems linked to plant diversity
  6. Find out how global changes (like drought, microplastics or management practices) affect soil biodiversity and its functioning

Together, you will help to open the black box of soil in terms of examining what is there and what it does!