Response diversity describes the variation in how individuals, species, or functional groups respond to environmental change and the concept is increasingly recognised as a key driver of ecosystem resilience. Understanding and promoting response diversity is therefore essential for conserving biodiversity and supporting resilient ecosystems in a changing world.
The University of Oldenburg invites applications for a Doctoral Candidate position within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network ReDiLEEP. ReDiLEEP brings together leading universities, research institutes, and non-academic partners across Europe and beyond to advance response diversity research and translate new knowledge into ecosystem management, restoration, and biodiversity policy.
The Doctoral Candidate will contribute to this effort by investigating response diversity (RD) in marine pelagic ecosystems, focusing on how plankton communities respond to changing environments, and how response diversity is shaped by adaptation and spatial dynamics. To achieve this aim, the candidate will conduct lab experiments ranging from simple bioassays to complex metacommunity experiments. Secondments on pulse disturbance experiments at Trinity College Dublin and on modelling resilience and RD at University of Zürich are planned.
Research Project DC3
DC3 will use empirical plankton ecology to analyze both the stabilizing consequences of RD and the dynamics of RD under environmental change. The candidate will test i) whether communities with larger RD in terms of thermal reaction norms show more stable biomass production and stoichiometry under gradual warming (press disturbance) and in response to a marine heatwave (pulse disturbance), ii) whether under sustained environmental change, RD declines, and iii) whether RD is refilled through spatial dynamics in metacommunities or during adaptation (and thus shifted response traits) under temperature change. The project comprises four types of experiments: E1: Bioassay and thermal reaction norms of monocultures and natural phytoplankton communities. E2: Long term microcosm study on gradual temperature increases to quantify biodiversity (Hill numbers) and warming-induced changes in community composition, biomass, and elemental stoichiometry. Communities will then be split into two sub-experiments: E2a isolates 5–10 species (control and +6°C) to determine thermal reaction norms (5–30°C), linking RD to stability; E2b undergoes a heatwave (+6°C for 7 days) to test if warm-adapted species reduce pulse disturbance RD. E3: Laboratory setup of 36 metacommunities under three connectivity levels (none, medium, high) to test spatial dynamics of RD.
