*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 d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, FRANCE *Stipend:* 436.05 €/month 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 <http://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 Email: [email protected] Tel : +33 4 67 61 33 25
