Seeking for a post-doctoral fellow to work on impacts of climate change at the ecosystem level

Group Summary: Marine Plant Ecology Group (ALGAE)

 Our group investigates the ecology of seagrasses and marine macroalgae, with an emphasis on the processes that regulate marine plant production at different organizational levels, from genes to ecosystems. Our research spans into topics such as the impacts of climate change (ocean acidification, marine heatwaves), ecosystem metabolism and calcification, blue carbon assessments, habitat mapping and seagrass restoration. Our scientific output is expected to contribute to the valuation, management and conservation of the ecological services of vegetated coastal systems in the challenging context of climate changes.

 Theme for potential candidates:

Impacts of climate change at the ecosystem level. The impacts of climate change (namely ocean acidification, ocean warming and marine heatwaves) have so far been mostly investigated at the species level, either through conceptual modelling approaches or through actual experimental simulations of future scenarios in mesocosm system. It is now evident that different co-occurring species often exhibit contrasting ecophysiological responses to environmental stressors (e.g. seagrasses vs. calcifying species), with potentially significant implications at the ecosystem functioning level. The goal of this research line is to obtain relevant breakthroughs in our understanding of these ecological and physiological interspecific feedbacks under predicted future ocean scenarios, taking advantage of state-of-the-art experimental systems available at CCMAR.

Supervisor: João Silva (jmsilva@ualg.pt)