Reference : W16- 16 - 083
Release date : 05/02/2016
Deadline for receipt of applications : 13 mars 2016
More information on :
http://wwz.ifremer.fr/institut_eng/Ifremer-careers/Jobs-and-Internships/Researcher-in-benthic-ecosystem-modelling
Job description:
The French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer, France)
contributes to the knowledge of the oceans and their resources, to
monitoring of marine and coastal environments and to the sustainable
development of marine activities. To these ends, Ifremer conceives and
operates tools for observation, experimentation and monitoring, and
manage the oceanographic databases.
The DYNECO (Dynamics of Coastal Ecosystems) research unit is one
component of the « Oceanography and Ecosystems Dynamic » department and
has for main objective to study how coastal ecosystems respond to
anthropogenic or natural pressures. DYNECO conducts scientific and
expert assessment activities in this field. The global approach rests on
the analysis of physical and biogeochemical processes and is based on
experimentations, in-situ observations and modelling. The main research
areas concern : i) dissolved and particulate matter fluxes within marine
coastal ecosystems , ii) diversity, functioning and future of
communities and of their habitats, iii) perturbation at population scale.
Within DYNECO, the Coastal Benthic Ecology Laboratory (LEBCO) focuses
its researches on the explanation of the structures and the associated
functionalities of benthic coastal ecosystems in relation with
environmental pressures. The structuring of benthic habitats depends on
physical (hydrodynamic, sediment) and hydrological (temperature,
turbidity, oxygen, organic matter…) parameters but also on species
interactions. Based on studies regarding ecophysiology, behavior of
benthic organisms, which are carried on in LEBCO but also in other
research units, and under the responsability of the head of LEBCO, the
researcher will develop benthic ecosystem mechanistic models in order to
simulate benthic habitat responses to natural and/or anthropogenic
change of environment.
More specifically, the researcher will:
- Explain the space-and time dynamics of benthic communities of the
French continental shelf with a modelling approach. He/she will be
expected to develop and use several kinds of models (ecophysiology,
population dynamics,…) for benthic organisms and/or for functional
groups and to couple them preferentially to Ifremer modelling platform
(ECO-MARS3D) which provides the main physical and biological
characterictics of coastal ecosystems (hydrodynamic, primary production,
sediment dynamics).
- Propose and design oceanographic campaigns and/or experimentations in
the field or in the lab in order to collect data for model improvement,
calibration and validation.
- Apply for grant proposals (at regional, national or European scale).
