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Project properties |
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| Title | Studying the effect of land use intensity and land use changes on functional diversity of soil biota |
| Group | Soil Biology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Doina Mani (SGL & SBL), Carmen Vazquez Martin (SBL) |
| Examiner(s) | prof.dr. Rachel Creamer |
| Contact info | doina.mani@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2022/03/01 |
| End date | |
| Description | Soil biota play a crucial role in the provision of ecosystem functions. A promising way to link the abundance of soil biota to these functions is by studying their functional diversity. Functional diversity describes the range of different functions that can be performed by the organisms in the soil community, rather than the number of species. In May 2022, a fieldwork campaign across 200 sites in the Netherlands will be executed to study the effect of land-use intensity and land use changes over the past 50 years on functional diversity of soil biota. The sampling locations represent a wide range of different land-use changes. Soil samples will be taken to identify various soil biota (earthworms, nematodes, microbiota) and measure soil physical and chemical properties. In your research, you will be focusing on the functional diversity of soil biota in relation to land use intensity and land use changes. Thereby, aiming to answer research questions such as; How does land-use intensity and land use change impact different functional groups and functional diversity? How do certain soil properties mediate the effect of land-use intensity on functional diversity? |
| Used skills | Literature review, writing proposal and thesis, sampling and field experiments, biological and chemical laboratory work, data analysis |
| Requirements | Standard requirements for starting a MSc thesis project at SBL. |