IMPRS 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 soil science is covered in a separate course.

Category: Core course
Credits: 0.2 per course day

>> Terrestrial Biosphere 2020

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

1.  When

September 16 - October 14, 2022

2.  Where

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

Excursion: Meeting point at the entrance of the Jena Experiment

MPI-BGC: lecture hall, B0.002 and outside

3.  Agenda from 2020 which will be developed further

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

Sept 16 - Introduction (L)

Richard Nair
9:00 - 10:30
Hierarchical theory and levels of organization of biological systems
- Intro to ecophysiology
- Ecosystem and Biospheric levels of organization
MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002

Sept 21 - Biodiversity and ecosystem functions & Ecophysiology I
Christine Römermann and Solveig Franziska Bucher
9:00 - 11:00 Biodiversity (L)
- What is biodiversity?
- Changes and threat on biodiversity
- Consequences of biodiversity loss
- Biodiversity experiments
- Biodiversity and ecosystem processes

Am Planetarium 1: Lecture hall, ground floor of the Schleiden Institute

11:15 - 12:45 Excursion to the Jena Experiment (E)
Markus Lange
Meeting point at the entrance of the Jena Experiment

14:00 - 16:00 Biodiversity & Ecophysiology (L/D/P)
Am Planetarium 1: lecture hall

Sept 22 - Plant traits and modeling plant/soil
Jens Kattge
09:00 -12:30 Biogeochemical cycles in general & models of BGC cycles (L)
Traits as characteristics of plants (including their relevance for determining soil properties)
MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002

Sept 30 - Dendrochronology
David Herrera
09:00 - 12:00 Introduction to dendrochronology (L)
MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002

13:00 - 15:00 Hands-on (P)

Oct 5 - Ecophysiology II
Henrik Hartmann
09:00 - 13:00 Carbon Metabolism, water in plants, transport processes, nutrients and interactions (L)
Plant carbon and water relations in a changing world. Implications for global forest ecosystems.
MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002

13:00 - 17:00 Hands on part (D/P)
MPI-BGC outside / basement

Oct 6 - From plants to planet: The global biosphere
Axel Kleidon
09:00 - 10:45
Population dynamics and resources (L, D, P )

MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002
11:00 - 12:45
Dynamics of the biosphere (L)

14:15 - 16:00 Planetary dynamics (L)

Nov 1 - Introduction to global biosphere modelling
Ana Bastos
9:30 - 11:00 Mathematical representation of ecosystem models (L)
MPI-BGC lecture hall or B0.002

11:30 - 12:30 Building a simple biogeochemical model in 3 steps of abstraction (visual representation, mathematical representation, working model) (P/D)
for this part, please bring a laptop with a current version of python and spyder or another python IDE installed. Ideally you should have some basic programming knowledge, but we will build the model step by step so that everyone can follow.

13:30 - 16:00 Building a simple biogeochemical model in 3 steps of abstraction (visual representation, mathematical representation, working model) (P/D)

for this part, please bring a laptop with a current version of python and spyder or another python IDE installed. Ideally you should have some basic programming knowledge, but we will build the model step by step so that everyone can follow.

4.  Registration

>> Register here by August 31, 2022.