PhD studentship (m/f/d): Tree Carbon Allocation to the Rhizosphere and Related Microbial Processes under Severe Drought

01.10.2025, Wissenschaftliches Personal

Join the new EU-funded FutureForests international doctoral network and undertake an interdisciplinary PhD project with the Plant Ecophysiology group at the TUM School of Life Sciences

PhD studentship (m/f/d): Tree Carbon Allocation to the Rhizosphere and Related Microbial Processes under Severe Drought Join the new EU-funded FutureForests international doctoral network and undertake an interdisciplinary PhD project with the Plant Ecophysiology group at the TUM School of Life Sciences FutureForests aims to train next generation scientists in assessing the impacts of global change on European forests, using a unique network of European flagship field forest facilities. It connects nine manipulation facilities and >20 academic and associated partners in an interdisciplinary career skills programme across Europe. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of the best universities in Europe. It is characterised by excellence in research and teaching, interdisciplinarity and talent promotion. The studentship is based within the Ecophysiology of Plants group at the Land Surface-Atmosphere Interactions professorship at the TUM. The position aims to understand the impact of recurrent droughts on the carbon allocation by trees to the rhizosphere and related processes, as well as its effect on soil microbial diversity. The experimental forest site is a throughfall exclusion study in Southern Germany which has undergone long-term drought treatments since 2014 (KROOF: https://www.lss.ls.tum.de/en/lsai/kroof/). You will use this unique experimental setup, in which drought-naïve trees are subjected to recurrent drought summers for the first time, to make comparisons with legacy trees that have experienced drought treatments before.

Kontakt: grams@tum.de