Thesis

"Texture dependency of Carbon decomposition, with laboratory and modelling approaches"

The thesis is embedded in the framework of the citizen science project “Expedition Erdreich” and its use of the “Tea Bag Index”. Based on observed decomposition rates of buried tea bags, a worldwide dataset will be assembled and analysed in terms of the varying carbon decomposition. Aim of the tea bag index is to gain a better understanding of the global carbon cycle and to document decay rates of different soils and geographical regions.

Your tasks:

The Master thesis will focus on the texture dependency of carbon decomposition under laboratory conditions. Therefore, two types of tea bags (green tea with fast decay rate and rooibos with slow decay rate) will be embedded in incubation vessels. The vessels will contain soil from different sites varying in soil textures (sandy, loamy and clayey soil). Over the incubation time the tea will be decomposed by microorganism and the produced CO

2
will be captured. Knowing the added amount of C and the time course of CO
2
production, the incubation process can be modelled. Therefore an already existing system of Carbon models (CCB, ICBM, C-TOOL …) shall be applied to evaluate the incubation data. Further statistical analyses are required to determine the texture dependency of the C decomposition.

• Set up and supervision of the incubation experiment
• Management and evaluation of the data
• Applying Carbon models to the incubation data
• Statistical analyses

Your profile:

Field of activity:

• Environmental science, geo science, soil science, informatics
• Experience with laboratory workflow
• Data management
• Mathematical understanding of environmental processes
• Programming experience at least in „R“
• Language: german, english (recommended)

Further literature and links:

Citizen Science project:

Tee bag index:
Carbon

model:

Carbon incubation:

We offer:

• A close and good care
• Exciting insights into the work of a leading institute
• Excellent technical facilities which are without parallel

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