Two years of grant funds to support a Ph.D. student on a Research Assistantship for a research project, Effects of Altered Temperature and Precipitation on Soil Bacterial and Microfaunal Communities as Mediated by Biological Soil Crusts, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy- Program for Ecosystem Research. I collaborate with Drs. Cheryl Kuske (Los Alamos National Laboratories, NM) and Jayne Belnap (Canyonlands National Park, UT) on this project. My role in this project is to test one of four hypotheses, predicting that increased temperature and seasonal shifts in precipitation will change abundance and composition of soil microfauna (nematodes, mites, collembolans, protozoa) that serve as a nutritional link between crust inputs and vascular plants. Check out some photos.
Responsibilities will include extraction, enumeration and identification of mites taxonomic family and collembolans to species, data entry, participation in preparing research papers, research presentations at scientific meetings, and statistical analysis and graphical illustration of data. Preference will be given to a student with experience in entomology and taxonomic identification.
Grant funds available to support a doctoral student for summer 2004 (May - August), Fall semester 2004, and Spring Semester 2005. The arrangement would pay an annual stipend of $16,000 during the academic year, plus medical insurance, and an additional summer stipend of about $3500. A tuition waiver is available from our Graduate School.
Typically, it takes an average of four years for a student to complete a PhD after a MS degree. Continuation of support on grant funds is dependent on grant renewal. Another option for financial support for the remaining three years of the degree program is a Teaching Assistantship through the department, which is available on a competitive basis. Typically, are department financially supports all graduate students that are involved in thesis or dissertation research.
If you are interested, please send in a completed application to our graduate program. You can find application materials on the web through the Graduate School of University of Toledo (http://www.utoledo.edu/grad-school/). To work with me, you would apply to the Ph.D. in Biology, Ecology track program (http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Academic%20Program/Programs/PhD%20ecology.htm)
Project Summary:
Effects of Altered Temperature and Precipitation on Soil Bacterial and Microfaunal Communities as Mediated by Biological Soil Crusts (May 1, 2002-April 30, 2005)
Approximately 30% of lands both globally and in the U.S. consist of semi-arid or arid landscapes. Soil surfaces in these landscapes are covered by biological soil crusts composed primarily of cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses. Because these crusts cover almost the entire soil surface, most atmospheric inputs of water, nutrients, and solar radiation to soils are mediated by the soil crust community. Bacteria in lichen and cyanobacterial crusts are diazotrophic and photosynthetic, making crusts a dominant source of fixed N and an important source of fixed C in arid land soils. In areas where precipitation is low and soils are infertile, native plants and soil microflora that are critical to plant survival often rely on intact biological crusts to provide sufficient water and nutrient flow.
Soil organisms are only metabolically active when wet. Because soils in deserts are so often dry, changes in the timing and/or amount of precipitation can dramatically alter crust physiology and species composition, with subsequent changes in crust structure and inputs of C and N to soils. Changes in crust structure and function will reverberate throughout multiple trophic levels of the soil food web, altering nutrient availability to vascular plants. As climate shifts will occur over hundreds of millions of hectares of arid landscapes, these changes have the potential for dramatically impacting global N and C cycles.
Manipulative and natural field experiments will test four hypotheses, predicting that increased temperature and seasonal shifts in precipitation will: (1) alter respiration, photosynthetic, and N fixation rates in lichen- and/or cyanobacterially-dominated crusts from cool (Colorado Plateau) and/or hot (Chihuahuan) deserts; (2) affect the composition of soil bacterial communities (cyanobacteria, N-fixing and NH3-oxidizing bacteria) within and beneath soil crusts; (3) change abundance and composition of soil microfauna (nematodes, mites, collembolans, protozoa) that serve as a nutritional link between crust inputs and vascular plants; and (4) through changes in the soil food web and soil chemistry, will indirectly alter growth and nutrient availability to vascular plants.
Our research team has expertise in physiology and function of arid land soil crusts, soil bacterial communities, and soil microfaunal communities. Our collective efforts will provide an integrated picture of critical soil processes, and community members responsible for those processes, that are essential for predicting the effects of climate change on arid soil ecosystems. The proposed studies will reveal cause-effect mechanisms among soil crusts, nutrient cycling processes in soil and higher plant communities, and identify key community members important in maintaining ecosystem productivity and stability when confronted with climate change.