Spatial patterns in biodiversity in Dutch fen meadow ditches in agricultural landscapes

Outline: This project focuses on spatial patterns of aquatic biodiversity in dutch agricultural polder landscapes. Specifically, cladocera zooplankton and aquatic and helophyte vegetation are studied in relation to local environment and larger scale processes such as connectivity and environmental heterogeneity. The effect of regional land use in relation to the biodiversity found in and around the ditches is studied with the goal of increasing understanding of the processes underlying diversity on a landscape scale. Possible questions to think of within the project are if agricultural lands have a different subset of species then adjacent nature reserves, what portion of landscape (gamma) diversity is determined by local habitat quality (alpha) and what by spatial processes (beta diversity).
Student projects: A student participating in the project has some freedom in finding their own niche within the project (e.g. zooplankton community structure, hydrological connectivity and biodiversity). The student will participate in a large scale field campaign in the western part of the Netherlands in the lowland fen meadows (field season: May-September). Field work will include the sampling of zooplankton, measuring and preparing samples for determination of water and soil quality parameters and identification of vegetation. Also, the morphology of studied water bodies (ditches) is measured.
Techniques: Possible skills learned during and after the field work will depend on the exact project of the student but can entail nutrient analyses, zooplankton and macrophyte identification, GIS data extraction and analysis and multivariate statistics.
Interested? – contact Sven Teurlincx (s.teurlincx@nioo.knaw.nl)