Dear All [sorry for cross posting, please transmit as appropriate]
This is to inform you about a postdoctoral opportunity available in the competitive recruitment of postdocs within the science within the Brazilian science without frontiers program permitting to work with my collaborator Aude Vialatte at Toulouse, France (and with me). The postdoc project is described below. In a nutshell it is on the relationship between where a tree is (relative to sources of nutrients, to landscape structure, to close relatives) and how much phytophagy it suffers. Inscription (for Brazilian candidates) is at http://www.cienciasemfronteiras.gov.br/web/csf/pos-graduacao-e-pos-doutorado The program is explained at http://www.cienciasemfronteiras.gov.br Best regards Andreas Prinzing POST-DOC PROPOSAL CSF BRAZIL 2012 Submission : 3795 Title: Optimizing spatial organisation of planted forests to prevent pest damages Scientific supervisor: Dr. Aude Vialatte E-mail address: [email protected] Research Laboratory: UMR 1201 INRA-INPT Dynafor Laboratory website: https://dynafor.toulouse.inra.fr/web/ Scientific domain: Sustainable agricultural production Post-doc duration: 12 months (potentially extendable) Short description of the research work: This study will help to support sustainable production in forestry in a agricultural context. Phytophages are major pests in forest ecosystems, but the distribution of phytophage abundance and their impact is very heterogeneous across any given forest with some trees suffering much higher attack than other, conspecific trees. What drives this variation in abundance and impact of phytophages and how do humans interfere with this? -> position of trees along large-scale gradients of resource quality, specifically fertilization due to emissions from the agricultural matrix and its effects on foliage quality: fertilisation might favour production of easily palatable leaf material and increase pest attack -> local spatial positions of a tree within the landscape of a forest canopy, with patches of different geometry and positions close or distant to the edge of patches: large patches and positions close to the patch edge might increase pest attack -> the local evolutionary position of a tree, i.e. the evolutionary distance from tree species in the surrounding canopy: short evolutionary distance might increase pest attack -> the idiosyncratic properties of individual trees on pest attack Do these different scales interact, so that increased resource availability has different effects on phytophagy at different positions within a landscape? We will test the effect of these factors for both, grazing of phytophages on angiosperm trees and on epiphytic cryptogams growing on these trees. Fertilization may counteract the defense strategies of Angiosperms (increased dry matter content, decreased N content) and hence favour phytophages. And fertilization may favour growth of cryptogams, notably algae, and again favour phytophages. We hence suggest that fertilization may have similar effects on evolutionary very distinct producer phytophage systems. We will also test for possible indirect effects of increased resource quality on phytophages via increased competition by dominant, destructively feeding phytophages on subdominant or non-destructive phytophages. We will study these factors in commercial, planted forests - typically composed of a set of planted parcels which are managed according to different factors. The goal is to understand the main drivers of forest pest attacks and biodiversity in the forest canopy focusing on gall species as an indicator taxon. Results will help to develop guidelines how to optimize the spatial organisation of a forest to prevent pest attacks while maintaining a high level of biodiversity. Such investigations will be relevant for management of almost any planted forests and reforested areas, including those of South-East and South regions of Brazil. We dispose of a highly attractive field setting of oak trees replicated within a block design. The corresponding foliar damages and gall diversity have been evaluated. The cartography of the forest is available, but work using Geographic Information System is necessary to obtain spatial variables and characteristics of agricultural fields. We also have information on a wide range of covariables like leaf chemistry, microclimate, phenology, soil parameters, canopy composition tree growth and spatial scaling. The post-doctoral researcher will conduct the synthesis part of the study, by (i) completing the necessary data (in particular the measure of spatial variables), (ii) conducting the statistical analyses and (iii) writing the manuscripts. She/he will work in close collaboration with Dr. Aude Vialatte (INPT-ENSAT, France) and Prof. Andreas Prinzing (University of Rennes, France). Two major publications in the domain of post-doc: Yguel, B., Bailey, R.; Everhart, D.; Vialatte, A., Vasseur, C., Vitrac, X. & Prinzing, A. (2011). Phytophagy on phylogenetically isolated trees: why hosts should escape their relatives. Ecology Letters, 14, 1117–1124. Vialatte, A., Bailey, R., Vasseur, C., Matocq, A., Goßner, M., Everhart, D., Vitrac, X., Belhadj, A., Ernoult, A.; & Prinzing, A. (2010) Phylogenetic isolation of host trees affects assembly of local Heteroptera communities. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 227, 2227-2236. Keywords: deciduous forest, sustainable production, biodiversity, foliar damages, spatial organisation Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Andreas Prinzing, Prof. Ecology of Diversification Team "Structure and Dynamics of Diversity" Research Unit "Ecobio" : Ecosystems - Biodiversity - Evolution Université Rennes 1 / Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Campus de Beaulieu, Bâtiment 14 A 35042 Rennes, France Tel : +33 2 23 23 67 12; fax: +33 2 23 23 50 26 [email protected] http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/Fiches_perso/Fiche.asp?pseudo=APrinzing http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/Fiches_perso/Banque/publi1_APrinzing.doc
