Postdoc: Aboveground – Belowground interactions

Vacancy number PostDocTE016046

The postdoc will study with a team of researchers how plant-mediated changes in soil communities can influence plant growth, plant chemistry and aboveground plant-insect interactions. Soils house an overwhelming abundance and diversity of (micro) organisms. The local composition and abundance of these organisms depends greatly on the identity of the plant that is growing in the soil. The performance of plants, in turn, is determined by interactions with soil organisms. Hence, via their specific effects on soil organisms, plants can influence the growth of other plants that grow later in the same soil.

We study the impact of such soil borne‘legacy effects’ on plants and aboveground insects in natural grasslands with the ultimate aim to use soil legacies to restore natural grasslands on former arable fields.We are looking for an (experienced) Postdoc who will study when, how, and at what temporal and spatial scales plant-soil legacy effects influence aboveground plant-insect interactions.Experimental approaches will include reciprocal soil and plant transplantations in grasslands,field experiments, and microcosm experiments in greenhouses.

Postdoc:Molecular/microbial ecologist: plant-soil interactions

Vacancy number PostDocTE01645

The candidate will study with a team of researchers how plant mediated changes in soil communities can influence plant growth and aboveground plant-insect interactions. Soils house an overwhelming abundance and diversity of (micro) organisms. The local composition and abundance of these organisms depends greatly on the identity of the plant that is growing in the soil. The performance of plants, in turn, is determined by interactions with soil organisms. Hence,via their specific effects on soil organisms, plants can influence the growth of other plants that grow later in the same soil.

We study the impact of soil-borne ‘legacy effects’ on plants and aboveground insects in natural grasslands and in horticultural crops and ornamentals. The ultimate aim is to make use of soil legacies to restore natural grasslands on former arable fields, and to develop microbial inocula to be used in commercial greenhouses to increase resistance of crops to pests and diseases.We are looking for a Postdoc with experience in molecular approaches to study interactions between plants and soil microbial communities. The postdoc is expected to design and carry out new experiments to study interactions between plants and soil microbial communities. Further,the postdoc will analyse existing datasets consisting of Illumina sequencing data of soil bacteria and fungi to study how plants influence the soil microbial community, and to examine relationships between the composition of the soil microbial community and the response of the plant that is exposed to this microbial community.

For further details of both posts, please see the attached files (links below).