Sybryn Maes
(Affiliated Researcher)

Ku University Leuven

Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Research Summary

In my postdoc at CIRC, I explored the (indirect) effects that climate warming may have on soil decomposition and respiration through changes in the vegetation and microbial communities. I investigated this topic through meta-analyses of decomposition and respiration datasets from various climate warming experiments across the globe/arctic. In my PhD studies in Forest Ecology at Ghent University (Belgium), I looked at how 3 key global-change drivers in temperate deciduous forests – climate warming, nitrogen deposition and land-use history – are altering European forests by performing an extensive field campaign. We found that these drivers interactively influence various components of temperate forests, from their soils to their understoreys to their trees. More broadly, as a nature enthusiastic ecologist, I am profoundly interested in the functioning of different natural ecosystems worldwide, the link with human use of these ecosystems, and interactions between their different components (e.g. plant-soil). When I am off scientific duty, you can mostly find me outside, enjoying the great diversity in species and landscapes that nature offers us.

Supervisor

Ellen Dorrepaal, Umeå University

Mats Björkman, Gotenburg Uni

Project

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Syntheses of decomposition and respiration responses across space and time

This postdoc project aims to investigate how climate warming affects the three sequential phases of organic carbon decomposition on a regional (arctic) to global scale, and compare the importance of direct and indirect (vegetation, microbial) mechanisms.