PhD Stage and colaboration

Department of Ecology – Institute of Biology. 

Limnology LabFederal University of Rio de Janeiro

Avenida Carlos Chagas Filho, 373, CCS, Bloco A, Subsolo, Sala A0-008

Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ. Brasil

CEP: 21.941-902     Caixa Postal: 68020

CEFE/CNRS

Campus du CNRS. 1919, route de Mende. 34293 Montpellier 5

Tel: +33 (0)4 67 61 32 37

Email : Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

Subject of the thesis: The effects of litter diversity on its decomposition: The importance of environmental context, community structure and species phenology

My PhD project intends to evaluate if the effects of litter diversity on decomposition may change in response to variations on community properties and environmental context where litters are decomposing. Then, I'm exploring four questions on different experiments:

1) How variations on environmental context interact with leaf litter diversity to determine its decomposition?

2) How variations on leaf litter input frequency patterns interact with litter diversity to determine its decomposition?

3) How variations on the amount of leaf litterfall interact with litter diversity to determine its decomposition?

4) How variations on plant community evenness - and consequently on species contribution to litter stock - interact with leaf litter diversity to determine its decomposition?

These questions were experimentally evaluated using leaf litter species from a Restinga ecosystem in the northern region of Rio de Janeiro state, in Brazil. Restinga is a shrubland dominated formation in Atlantic forest biome, full of ponds and coastal lagoons, which occupy sand soil deposits all along the east coast of Brazil, from northeast to south.

Supervisors: Francisco ESTEVES, Adriano CALIMAN & Stephan HÄTTENSCHWILER.