Registration Form
| Name |
Professor Walter Oechel, Director, Global Change Research Group
|
| Project Name |
Climate change and biogeochemical cycling in Mediterranean-type ecosystems of Southern California
|
| Area of research |
Global Change, North American Carbon Program, Sustainability, Ecosystem Ecology, Carbon budgets of ecosystems, chaparral, carbon sequestration, Biogeochemical Cycling, Mediterranean-type Ecosystems.
|
| Starting date and length of the internship | Starting date: Flexible |
Ending date: Flexible
Length of Internship: 3 mo. to 2 years
Description of the student activities
This is an opportunity to investigate the ecology and ecosystem functioning of chaparral and coastal sage scrub ecosystems of Southern California and to learn modern approaches to studying ecosystem metabolism, plant ecology, data acquisition and presentation, and data handling. The research opportunity is at our Sky Oaks Biological Field Station http://fs.sdsu.edu/kf/reserves/sofs/ about 2 hours drive north of SDSU. The SOBFS is part of the SDSU Field Stations Program http://fs.sdsu.edu/kf/ of San Diego State University http://www.sdsu.edu/ or at the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve about an hour north of campus. The research intern can select from a number of activities including measuring net ecosystem CO2 flux, H2O flux, and energy balance using eddy covariance; determination of horizontal and vertical carbon fluxes; movement of carbon in semi-arid ecosystems; ecophysiology of semi-arid shrub ecosystems; comparative ecosystem metabolism among shrub ecosystems of California and Baja California.
The successful applicant will write a term paper and make a power point presentation. Ideally the internship will result in a journal publication in an international journal. More information on the GCRG, and recent publications, can be found at http://gcrg.sdsu.edu/. Achieved and real time data is available.
Complementary financing ( if any)
Housing can be provided at one of the field stations SMER or SOBFS. For students staying a SOBFS, and willing to watch over the property, in addition to accommodation, a modest stipend may be available.
Level of English required by the visiting student (%)
English language capability required at the start of the internship is 40% speaking, 60% reading, and 30% writing. Spanish and French speaking Post Doctoral Fellows and graduate students are available to facilitate communication.