Coastal soft sediments are highly productive environments and their associated communities provide numerous important ecosystem goods and services. Sediment infauna, including clams, cockles and polychaetes, plays a key role in the exchange of nutrients and oxygen between the sediment/water interface through bioturbation and bioirrigation activities. In light of future climate scenarios, coastal habitats are likely exposed to multiple stressors including ocean warming trends, reoccurring heat waves and ocean acidification. The consequences for benthic community structures and the functions such communities provide are unprecedented and hard to foresee.
In this project, we will run a large mesocosm experiment to investigate how survival, trait expression and performance (e.g. bioirrigation potential) of Wadden Sea benthic communities will be affected by current and future marine heatwaves.
Tasks
The project will include field samplings in the Sylt tidal flat habitats, setup and maintenance of the tidal mesocosms and analysis of the obtained data. We will support you to develop your own ideas around this large mesocosm experiment for a successful MSc thesis project.
Requirements
Candidates require a completed BSc (or equivalent) and must be currently enrolled in a MSc program at a recognized university. An official supervisor from the home university is also required.
Further Information
The project will be conducted at the Wadden Sea Station of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Sylt, Germany from April to August 2022.
You are interested?
Then please send us your application with Cover letter and CV (with all documents merged into one PDF file) by e-mail to: Dr. Lukas Meysick (lukas.meysick@hifmb.de)
For further information, please contact Dr. Lisa Shama (lisa.shama@awi.de) or Dr. Christian Pansch-Hattich (cpansch@abo.fi).
For more information follow this link.