Supervisor
Dr Adam Pellegrini
Brief summary
Drylands are one of the dominant ecosystem types on earth and play an important role in regulating the trajectory of the terrestrial carbon sink. This project investigates how changes in fire and grazing regimes shift biodiversity and carbon and nitrogen cycling in a network of experiments across Africa and North America. Sites contain experimental manipulations of fire and herbivory that have been ongoing for decades and have been being sampled by members of the Pellegrini lab. This studentship would assess how these disturbances change ecosystems via modification of plant biodiversity and their physiological traits. Specifically, the differences in nutrient-acquisition and disturbance-recovery traits that plants possess. This would involve fieldwork in South Africa, Mozambique and North America. Lab work would be extensive, requiring soil nutrient and microbial activity analyses as well as physiological traits (e.g., mycorrhizal association in roots). Skills include biogeochemical analyses, plant physiology and field sampling.
Project Summary
Drylands are one of the dominant ecosystem types on earth and play an important role in regulating the trajectory of the terrestrial carbon sink. This project investigates how changes in fire and grazing regimes shift biodiversity and carbon and nitrogen cycling in a network of experiments across Africa and North America. Sites contain experimental manipulations of fire and herbivory that have been ongoing for decades and have been being sampled by members of the Pellegrini lab. This studentship would assess how these disturbances change ecosystems via modification of plant biodiversity and their physiological traits (e.g., root physiology and associations with mycorrhizal fungi). Specifically, the differences in nutrient-acquisition and disturbance-recovery traits that plants possess. This would involve fieldwork in South Africa, Mozambique and North America. Lab work would be extensive, requiring soil nutrient and microbial activity analyses as well as physiological traits (e.g., mycorrhizal association in roots). Skills include biogeochemical analyses, plant physiology and field sampling.
What will the successful applicant do?
This studentship would assess how fire and grazing disturbances change ecosystems via modification of plant biodiversity and their physiological traits. Specifically, the differences in nutrient-acquisition and disturbance-recovery traits that plants possess. This would involve fieldwork in South Africa, Mozambique and North America. Lab work would be extensive, requiring soil nutrient and microbial activity analyses as well as physiological traits (e.g., mycorrhizal association in roots). Skills include biogeochemical analyses, plant physiology and field sampling.
References
Pellegrini, Adam FA, et al. "Soil carbon storage capacity of drylands under altered fire regimes." Nature Climate Change 13.10 (2023): 1089-1094. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01800-7