FutureForests

The FutureForests Doctoral Network is an EU-funded Marie Sklodowska-Curie´s Actions (MSCA) initiative, which aims to train the next generation scientists in assessing the impacts of global change on European forests. Using a unique network of European flagship field forests facilities, it connects nine manipulation facilities and >20 academic and associated partners in an interdiscplinary career skills programme across Europe.

Here in LSAI the PhD studentship is focusing on the tree carbon allocation to the rhizosphere and related microbial processes as well as changes of biodiversity in forest soils under recurrent drought.

This studentship aims to understand the impact of recurrent droughts on the allocation of carbon by trees to the rhizosphere and related processes, as well as the effect on soil microbial diversity. The experimental forest site is a throughfall exclusion study in southern Germany that has undergone long-term drought treatments since 2014 (KROOF: https://www.lss.ls.tum.de/en/lsai/kroof/). In this unique experimental setup, drought-naïve trees are subjected to recurrent drought summers for the first time, and are used to make comparisons with trees that have experienced this drought treatment before (legacy trees).

The key objectives of the studentship are the following: 

1. Assess changes in soil microbial biodiversity under European beech and Norway spruce grown in mono-specific and mixed stands in response to experimentally induced summer drought.
2. Using stable carbon isotope labelling, study the sustained support of root-soil systems of mature trees under intense summer drought.
3. Study the persistence of belowground structures (e.g. fine roots, mycorrhizae) in the rhizosphere of mature trees under drought conditions.