2-Year Postdoctoral Position in Modeling of Microbial Soil Carbon Cycling

Postdoc of Genome-Informed Microbial Biogeochemical Modeling Soils store 2300 Pg of organic carbon – three times as much as in the atmosphere. Yet, the fate of these huge carbon stocks under global warming remains highly uncertain. Although microorganisms are key players in soil carbon decomposition, large-scale models ignore microbial processes due to difficulty of quantifying microbial traits that can inform models. To overcome this limitation, the aim of this position is to quantify microbial traits from metagenomes to develop a microbial-explicit version of the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS. You will join a dynamic team at the Center of Excellence VOLT (Center for Volatile Interactions) consisting of microbial ecologists, biogeochemists and ecosystem modelers. We offer a creative and stimulating working environment in a collaborative, international research group.