Soil ecology in organic agriculture: how soil microbes and nematodes affect ecosystem functions

Soil communities are involved in important ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, soil organic matter dynamics, and disease suppression.                      

In the Vital Soils project we try to understand how soil communities are affected by agricultural management types and how soil communities affect ecosystem processes. Therefore we study soil community composition and functioning in agricultural fields with different histories. We are looking for tools to steer soil organisms in order to enhance agro-ecosystem functioning.

You will be carrying out fieldwork to collect soil samples from farmers which have different management regimes. With these soils you will design greenhouse experiments to study, for example, how different groups in the soil community drive ecosystem processes or how we can use soil transplantation to steer ecosystem functioning.

Type of work

• Fieldwork: sampling soil in agricultural fields.
• Pot experiments in climate chambers or greenhouse
• Data analysis, interpretation and writing

Requirements

• Strong interest in soil ecology or plant-soil interactions and ecosystem functioning
• Dutch driving license regarding the fieldwork
• Fluent in Dutch to be able to communicate with the farmers

Project type

Thesis or internship

Credits

24-36

Start date

Between July or August