The role of drought in tree mortality globally

What is the role of droughts in mediating tree mortality across the globe? How does this mortality vary in space and time? What are the potential feedbacks with the carbon cycle and climate? These questions are of fundamental importance for our understanding of how climate change will evolve because forest ecosystems are huge stores and sinks of carbon. This PhD project will investigate these questions, developing, evaluating and applying a treatment of drought-induced mortality within a state-of-the-art global ecosystem model (LPJ-GUESS). The studentship is fully funded as part of the ERC-funded project TreeMort, which aims to understand and quantify how rates and drivers of tree mortality vary across the globe, and thus better constrain projections of terrestrial carbon uptake.

The student will become a member of a young and dynamic team of researchers at the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, where they will also benefit from the exciting training opportunities and international activity resulting from the huge recent investment in the first temperate forest FACE (Free Air CO2 Experiment; http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/bifor/face/index.aspx), which has recently been established at Birmingham. They will develop skills in quantitative ecosystem modelling, scientific code development and data analysis. There will be substantial opportunities for travel and to build strong links international links, collaborating with partners from across Europe.

Applicants should be submitted via the Environmental Health Sciences PhD programme at the University of Birmingham, marking Dr Tom Pugh as supervisor and giving the title of the PhD as the research proposal (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/research/gees/environmental-health-risk-mgt.aspx?OpenSection=HowToApply). For informal enquiries contact [Email Address Removed]. Deadline for applications has been extended to 11th December 2017.