PhD Biodiversity monitoring for nature-inclusive agrifood transitions

Descrizione

PhD Biodiversity monitoring for nature-inclusive agrifood transitions Sintesi in italiano (traduzione automatica): L'organizzazione Wageningen University & Research cerca un candidato per un dottorato di ricerca nel progetto NWO-KIC RISE, focalizzato sulla transizione verso un'agricoltura inclusiva della biodiversità. Il ruolo prevede lo sviluppo di un framework decisionale interattivo per monitorare la biodiversità e il controllo biologico dei parassiti in agricoltura e orticoltura. Il candidato lavorerà in un team interdisciplinare di quattro dottorandi, collaborando con agricoltori e stakeholder. Le mansioni includono studi sul campo e in serra, progettazione di mappe di biodiversità e pubblicazione di articoli accademici. È richiesta una laurea in Scienze Ambientali o un campo correlato, con competenze in ecologia e monitoraggio degli ecosistemi. Are you motivated to contribute to the transition toward nature-inclusive agriculture and horticulture? And are you interested in biodiversity, ecosystem services and biological pest control? Then join the NWO-KIC project RISE – Resilient Integrated Systems for Ecosystem restoration as a PhD candidate. You will co-develop an interactive spatial decision-support framework for agrifood transitions in an interdisciplinary team of four PhD candidates, collaborating closely with farmers, growers and societal stakeholders. Biodiversity restoration in agriculture and horticulture is urgently needed, but difficult to realize in practice. Farmers operate in complex systems: they are embedded in value chains, regional communities, regulatory environments, ecological landscapes, and business models that often prioritize short-term productivity and profitability. RISE addresses this challenge by developing systems-based tools and implementation pathways that help stakeholders make nature-inclusive decisions that are ecologically meaningful, economically viable, and socially supported. RISE is an interdisciplinary project involving Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University & Research, Leiden University, and Inholland University of Applied Sciences, together with a broad network of societal partners from agriculture, horticulture, regional development, water management, policy, and civil society. The project works in two regional case areas: Oostland Zuid-Holland, focused on greenhouse horticulture and Reusel-Zuid, focused on open-field agriculture. A third region on tree-nursing will be used for validation and replication. This PhD position is hosted by Wageningen University & Research, within the Laboratory of Entomology and the crop protection team of the Greenhouse Unit in Bleiswijk. You will be part of a closely connected cohort of four PhD candidates working across universities and disciplines. All candidates receive cross-university supervision to ensure deep integration between innovation science, system dynamics, spatial modeling, and ecology. The specific focus of this PhD project is biodiversity monitoring and biological pest control as an ecosystem service. You will study how biodiversity implementation in the two case areas is related to biological pest control as an ecosystems service, and validate key performing indicators. This includes the design of biodiversity heat maps, identifying key indicator species, setting up field and greenhouse experiments to validate ecosystem services, biodiversity monitoring, molecular gut content analyses of key predators and assessing biological control capacity with sentinel prey. Your duties and responsibilities include: Develop, implement and evaluate innovative ways of biodiversity and ecosystem services monitoring Field and greenhouse studies to validate ecosystem services of input key performing indicators Studies to understand how functional diversity can enhance biological pest control Contributing to collaborative scenario development and implementation roadmaps for nature-inclusive agrifood systems. Publishing—sometimes also in collaboration with the other RISE PhDs—in high-quality academic papers on topics such as functional ecology, biological pest control, collaborative innovation for biodiversity restoration and business viability of nature-inclusive transition pathways. You will work here You will work within the entomology team at the expertise centre for Greenhouse Horticulture of Wageningen Research in Bleiswijk, where you will be supervised by Prof. Gerben Messelink as promotor. The research is embedded within the Laboratory of Entomology , which is led by Prof. Bregje Wertheim .The Laboratory of Entomology and the Unit Greenhouse Horticulture are part of the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen University and Research. You will collaborate closely with the other PhD candidates in RISE, who focus on spatial system mapping and decision-support design, ecologic Annuncio in inglese. Fonte: Euraxess (Commissione europea).