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Project properties |
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| Title | Climate resilience in agroforestry systems. |
| Group | Soil Biology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Karen Moran Rivera (SBL, SOC), Mathilde Hagens (SOC) Gabriel Moinet (SBL), |
| Examiner(s) | prof.dr. Rachel Creamer |
| Contact info | karen.moranrivera@wur.nl; mathilde.hagens@wur.nl; gabriel.moinet@wur.nl
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| Begin date | 2023/03/01 |
| End date | |
| Description | Agroforestry is increasingly recognised as a potential mitigation and adaptation strategy against climate change. Agroforestry is often argued to increase soil carbon, improve nutrient cycling and promote soil biodiversity. However, large disparities between sites and conditions can be observed in the literature, and the mechanisms supporting all the potential benefits of agroforestry remain very poorly understood and rarely thoroughly investigated.
This project will aim at understanding the effects of agroforestry management on soil carbon dynamics and its sensitivity to climate warming. More specifically, you will collect samples across agroforestry farm (and/or used archived samples from agroforestry farms) and evaluate the quantity and quality of the organic matter forms of carbon they contain. Then you will incubate these different samples using a recently developed method to determine accurately the temperature response of soil CO2 emissions. Your work will contribute to unravel the mechanisms that drive the climate sensitivity of soil carbon dynamics and understand the climate resilience potential of agroforestry management. |
| Used skills | Literature review, writing proposal, and thesis, field sampling, experimental design, laboratory skills, and data analysis. |
| Requirements | Required courses for MSc thesis in Soil Biology OR Soil Chemistry and Chemical Soil Quality |