Postdoctoral Research Fellow (f/m/d)
in Estimation of respiration and net primary production in boreal and temperate forests

Organizational unit

Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung Atmosphärische Umweltforschung (IMKIFU)

Job description

The Plant Ecophysiology Group (https://ecophys.imk-ifu.kit.edu/) focuses on research into how trees and forests respond to drought and other environmental change across scales and is looking for a highly motivated new colleague to support the team in spatial data analysis, statistical modelling and model-data integration.

• You will conduct research within the DFG-funded project “Estimating tree tissue nitrogen content, respiration and net primary production in boreal and temperate forests” (NicerNPP).
• Within this project, you will integrate recent satellite-derived spatial products of forest biomass with complementary data on tree traits and species distributions to estimate plant respiration and net primary production (NPP) across boreal and temperate forests.
• For this task, you will compile and analyze a database of measured tree tissue respiration rates.
• You will then assess the environmental drivers shaping the spatial patterns of respiration and NPP and compare your results with existing NPP products as well as outputs from vegetation models.
• This work will support improved monitoring of key carbon fluxes for quantifying forest growth and carbon uptake and help enhance their representation in vegetation models, particularly under changing climate and species distributions.
• You are expected to publish your findings in internationally recognized journals.

Starting date

01.05.2026 oder schnellstmöglich

Personal qualification

• You have a PhD degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., Earth System Sciences, Geography, Environmental Sciences, Biology, Physics) or will hold this degree before starting this position.
• You have a strong research interest and background in the carbon cycle of forest ecosystems.
• You have strong programming skills (e.g., R, Python, C++).
• You have experience in data analysis, statistics, model-data integration and the application of remote sensing products.
• You are highly motivated and open to communicate with other researchers and technicians.
• You are interested to present your research at scientific conferences and project meetings.
• Excellent English skills are mandatory.