4-year PhD scholarship in the Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia (CTFC)

The Forest Functioning and Dynamics group (FiDBosc) of the Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia is seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate in the field of forest ecology. 
The successful candidate will investigate how the structure and composition of sub-mediterranean forests modulates their resilience face to natural disturbances. This research will be conducted in the context of the project RESILFOR (AGL2012-40039-C02-01) and supervised by  Lluís Coll and Aitor Ameztegui. 

The 4-year PhD grant will be funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Programa de Contratos Predoctorales para laFormación de Doctores). 

Information about procedures and requisites can be found in the following link: BOE-A-2013-8984.

Applications should be submitted ONLINE between August 26 and September 10.

PhD candidates may have previous experience in fieldwork and the ability to work independently but within a team environment.  Good skills in statistics and modeling are meriting and a good standard of written and spoken English is essential.

Interested candidates please send a motivation letter and CV to: lluis.coll@ctfc.cat

New doctor at FiDBosc!

Lluis, Aitor and the members of the board

Today, July 17th, Aitor Ameztegui  succesfully defended his PhD Dissertation entitled "Forest dynamics at the montane-subalpine ecotone in the Eastern Pyrenees", here in Solsona, in front of the members of the board: Dr. Jordi Voltas from Universitat de Lleida, Dr. Lorena Gómez-Aparicio from IRNAS-CSIC, and Dr. Christian Ammer from Göttingen University.

Aitor's thesis has been developed here at FiDBosc, under supervision of Lluís Coll, so congratulations to both Lluís and Aitor!

Two moments of the defence

PhD defence: Aitor Ameztegui

Aitor Ameztegui will defend his PhD Thesis next july 17th at the Forest Sciences Center of Catalonia (CTFC). Aitor has developed his PhD project "Forest dynamics at the montane-subalpine ecotone in the Eastern Pyrenees", in the FiDBosc group, under supervision of Dr. Lluís Coll .

The main objective of this thesis was to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of mixed-conifer forests constituting the montane-subalpine ecotone of the Pyrenees. For this, we identified the main environmental factors that drive the dynamics of these communities to then assess how changes in these factors may affect their future structure and composition. This work was done using a multiscale approach that allowed detecting the key factors determining the dynamics of these systems across different biological scales.

All the information gathered across the different scales was used to parameterize an individual-based, spatially-explicit model of forest dynamics (SORTIE-ND) in order to simulate the future dynamics of the studied forests.The results of the simulations support the predictions of future biome changes in the Pyrenean subalpine forests, since A. alba and P. sylvestris may find appropriate conditions for colonizing mountain pine dominated stands due to land-use change-related forest densification and climate warming, respectively.

One of the studied mixed-forests

TITLE: Forest dynamics at the montane-subalpine ecotone in the Eastern Pyrenees

AUTHOR: Aitor Ameztegui (CTFC)

SUPERVISOR: Dr. Lluís Coll (CTFC)

TIME: Wednesday, July 17th 2013, at 11 A.M.

VENUE: Conference Hall at the Forest Sciences Center of Catalonia (CTFC)

CONTACT: