Fungi and protists are both microbial eukaryotes and important constituents of the soil microbiome. They provide indispensable ecosystem functions. However, their lifestyle is highly contrasting in regard to nutrient acquisition, mobility and interactions with other organisms. The spatial and temporal variation of their diversity, their response to land-use change or global warming and their interactions are still poorly understood. The overall objective of this project is to assess whether abundance and/or diversity of fungi and protists, or specific phylogenetic or functional groups of them, can serve as indicators for describing the conditions and quality of soils. To reach conclusive information, methodological developments for optimized soil sampling, storage and DNA/RNA analyses, especially for studying protist diversity, are still required and thus part of this work. The study is conducted in the Molecular Microbial Ecology group of Prof. Christoph Tebbe at the Thünen Institute in Braunschweig, Germany and supported by a collaboration with Prof. Michael Bonkowski at the University of Cologne. A PhD program at the Technical University of Braunschweig of the University of Cologne can be entered. For more details, including payment etc., see the official job announcement in the attachment, on the Website of the Institute (www.thuenen.de) under Job Offers (2020-073-BD) or contact directly by Email christoph.tebbe@thuenen.de
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Location: Thünen Institute, Braunschweig, Germany; University of Cologne, Germany