1 PhD Position in Forest Nutrient Cycling in France | French National Institute for Agricultural Research

The PhD student will be using both natural variations of stable isotopes and labeling techniques to study the effects of liming on the biogeochemical cycling of Mg and Ca.

There are two main objectives:

Study the Mg and Ca cycling in a 35-yr old beech stand where a multi-isotopic tracing experiment was carried out in April 2010. This plot has been intensively monitored and the use of 26Mg and 44Ca labeled material enables to very finely study the fluxes and the processes.

By using the natural isotope variations of Mg and Ca, study the effect of liming on Mg and Ca pools and fluxes. For this part of the project, the PhD student will use the "forest liming" network of plots throughout France. This network covers a large range of soil types, climatic conditions, tree species, stand ages, fertility levels and duration since the liming. Each plot has been monitored at a 8 to 10 year time step since the liming: soils and above ground biomass samples were taken and stored at each time step. The PhD student will focus on beech and douglas fir and will compare the limed and the control plots at each site and for each sampling date to study the effects but also how long this effects last over time.