IMPRS-gBGC core course: Terrestrial Biosphere

This course will focus on processes important in biosphere-atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gases as well as methods used to scale these exchange processes to understand their importance in global biogeochemical cycles.

The emphasis will be on plants since soils are covered in a separate course.

Category: Core course
Credits: 0.2 per course day

If you are an doctoral researcher with limited background knowledge in biology and ecology, this is the right course for you.

1. When

Part 1: April 20,27, and 29 as webinar
Part 2: September 10 and 17, October 12 in-person

2. Where

September 10: Am Planetarium 1: Lecture hall (ground floor of the Schleiden Institute)

September 10: Excursion: Meeting point at the entrance of the Jena Experiment

September 17 MPI-BGC: lecture hall and outside
October 12: MPI-BGC: lecture hall

3. Outline

preliminary agenda

Legend
L = lecture, D = demonstration, P = practical, E = excursion

Day & slot	Type	Content	Who & where
September 10		Biodiversity and ecosystem functions & Ecophysiology I
9:00 - 11:00	L	Biodiversity - What is biodiversity? - Changes and threat on biodiversity - Consequences of biodiversity loss - Biodiversity experiments - Biodiversity and ecosystem processes	Christine Römermann Am Planetarium 1: Lecture hall, ground floor of the Schleiden Institute
11:15 - 12:45	E	Excursion to the Jena Experiment	Markus Lange Meeting point at the entrance of the Jena Experiment
14:00 - 16:00	L/D/P	Biodiversity & Ecophysiology	Christine Römermann and Dr. Solveig Franziska Bucher / Am Planetarium 1: Lecture hall
September 17		Ecophysiology II
09:00 - 13:00	L	Carbon Metabolism, water in plants, transport processes, nutrients and interactions	Henrik Hartmann MPI-BGC lecture hall
13:00 - 17:00	D/P	Hands on part	Henrik Hartmann MPI-BGC Outside / basement
October 12		Plant traits and modeling plant/soil
09:00 -12:30	L	Biogeochemical cycles in general & models of BGC cycles Traits as characteristics of plants (including their relevance for determining soil properties)	Jens Kattge MPI-BGC lecture hall
April 29		Plants in Landscapes & large scale biodiversity / biogeography	Webinar
09:00 - 10:30	L	Pattern and process at landscape scales - the physical template - biotic processes - disturbance - tools, metrics and models	Axel Kleidon
11:00 - 12:30	L	Large scale biodiversity and biogeography - from plants to biomes and biodiversity - exchange fluxes of the biosphere - atmosphere-biosphere interactions - the global biosphere	Axel Kleidon
14:00 - 16:00	L	Lab exercise - geophysical modelling (laptops needed) (>> daisy world spreadsheet)	Axel Kleidon
April 20		Introduction	Webinar
14:00 - 15:30	L	Hierarchical theory and levels of organization of biological systems - Intro to ecophysiology - Ecosystem and Biospheric levels of organization	Carlos Sierra
April 27		Plant traits and modeling plant/soil	Webinar

11:00 - 12:30	L	Mathematical representation of ecosystem models	Carlos Sierra
14:00 - 17:00	P/D	Building a simple biogeochemical model in 3 steps of abstraction (visual representation, mathematical representation, working model) for this part, please bring a laptop with a current version of R and RStudio installed. The model will be presented in a way that you can follow without knowing R.	Carlos Sierra
14:00 - 17:00	P/D	Building a simple biogeochemical model in 3 steps of abstraction (visual representation, mathematical representation, working model) for this part, please bring a laptop with a current version of R and RStudio installed. The model will be presented in a way that you can follow without knowing R.	Carlos Sierra

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