A PhD position is currently available to work on a project examining carbon plantings in Australia in order to determine the best approaches for designing future environmental plantings for the cobenefits of Carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. The project will involve analyzing a large dataset on preexisting tree plantings around Australia as well as primary data collection in a field setting. The types of questions we hope to address with this PhD are:
1. How does tree diversity and composition influence carbon accumulation in mixed‐species plantings? 2. Can additional insights about species complementarity be gained by using functional trait information? 3. How well do existing forest models predict the performance of mixed species plantings? 4. What combinations of traits are most likely to result in higher rates of carbon accumulationand biomass carrying capacity in multispecies forest plantings? and 5. What are the best planting and maintenance thinning rules that best contribute in maximizing carbon‐biodiversity co‐benefits? The successful applicant will work jointly with ecologists in UQ's School of Biological Sciences and CSIRO's Ecosystem Sciences group in Brisbane. The supervisory team include: Dr. Margaret Mayfield (UQ), Dr. John Dwyer (UQ/CSIRO), myself (Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pichancourt - CSIRO) and Dr. Jacqui England (CSIRO). The student will work with supervisors to apply for a CSIRO's INRM scholarship - the scholarship provides up to $17,000/year for three years which includes a $7000 per year salary top-up and $10,000 per year in research funds. This proposal has been through the initial approval of this scholarship program, but as the scholarship is provided to an individual student, the selected student must apply for the scholarship directly (we will help with this). Ideal candidates will have experience using R and/or ecological statistics or at least strong marks (grades) in statistics subjects and an interest in ecological restoration. Interested students should provide a professional CV and a short letter of interest including details on your statistics experience to Dr. Margie Mayfield ([email protected]). Applications are due by January 12th. Contact of the main supervisor: Dr. Margie Mayfield Director of the Ecology Centre School of Biological Sciences Goddard Building (8) St Lucia Campus The University of Queensland Brisbane, 4072 Queensland Australia Phone: +61 (7) 3365 1685 Fax: +61 (7) 3365 1655 http://www.mayfieldplantecologylab.org
