Internship : Quantifying the tradeoffs between
replicability and reproducibility in microcosm
model systems for ecological research
Internship duration: 4-6 months (preferably from)
September till December2014/February 2015
Candidate profile: MSc student in ecology or
agronomy, BSc. student in life sciences, Graduate students in sabbatical
Advisors: Grégoire Freschet; Alexandru Milcu
Type of experiment: Greenhouse plant growth experiment
Location: CNRS, Centre dEcologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive,
1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, FRANCE
Stipend: 436.05 /mmonth
In ecology, experimental approaches involving
simplified ecosystem models (microcosms/pots) are
often use to inform global ecological problems.
The lack of reproducibility in experimental
studies is currently a hot topic in many fields
of science, but lacks proper evaluation in
ecological research. This study seeks
quantification of the extent to which
standardization can reduce the reproducibility of
microcosm uncovered findings.
This internship is part of a multi-laboratory
experiment to test the hypothesis that, by
artificially narrowing the experimental
conditions, the model system under study becomes
more prone to being influenced by any unaccounted
local particularity, which increases the
likelihood to find local truths. Therefore, the
reproducibility of results between laboratories
will increase when controlled systematic
heterogenization (both biological and environmental) is incorporated.
The main experiment will aim at quantifying the
well-known legume-grass facilitation effect by
comparing mixtures of a grass and a legume at the
pot level across various levels of biological and
environmental heterogeneity. Several measures of
functioning will be used to quantify this effect
including, but not limited to, productivity,
photosynthetic uptake, evapotranspiration,
microbial biomass, etc. This setup will be
replicated across several laboratories.
Contact: Grégoire Freschet
gregoire.freschet(at)cefe.cnrs.fr
Dr. Grégoire T. Freschet
Permanent researcher / Chargé de Recherche
CNRS, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France
<http://www.cefe.cnrs.fr/ecophysiologie-comparative-du-systeme-plante-sol/equipe>http://www.cefe.cnrs.fr/ecophysiologie-comparative-du-systeme-plante-sol/equipe
Email: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
Tel : +33 4 67 61 33 25
