PhD Student

Office Nr.	117, main building, 1st floor
Phone	+41 31 684 49 39
Email	Louisa.neubauer@ips.unibe.ch

My PhD project takes part within the PaNDiv experiment, which is an experimental grassland manipulating diversity, functional composition, nitrogen and foliar pathogen to assess the impact of global change drivers on ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. The aim of my research is to characterize underlying mechanisms driving coexistence and biodiversity effect. More precisely, I will assess how variation in resource uptake and stress response as well as natural enemies affect coexistence. Biodiversity loss is driven by changes in coexistence mechanisms that might lead to altered ecosystem functioning. Identifying the underlying mechanisms would provide us with the ability to predict the effect of environmental changes on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

Another aspect of the project is to unite the coexistence and biodiversity functioning theory contributing to a more mechanistic and predictive understanding of biodiversity declines and their impacts on ecosystem functioning.

Project: PaNDiv experiment