Two 24 month post-doc positions in marine ecological modeling are available at the laboratory "Ecologie des Systèmes Aquatiques" of the "Université Libre de Bruxelles" for immediate starting. Salary will be according to the Belgian labor law.

ULB-ESA is a small research unit composed of 6 senior scientists, 4 Ph-D students and 2 technicians. It is active since more than 15 years in the study of general aspects of aquatic microbial ecology, being funded by national and EU programs. ULB-ESA is currently developing an integrated conceptual methodological approach combining process-level and numerical experimentation that aims to develop a generic mechanistic biogeochemical model of the planktonic ecosystem based on physiological and geochemical principles.

Post-Doc 1: Generic mechanistic model of the marine planktonic system The candidate will be involved in the ongoing EU-project IRONAGES (Iron resources and oceanic nutrients-Advancement of global environment simulations). The numerical work will consist in the implementation of a complex generic model of the marine planktonic system, able to produce a most reliable estimation of the export production of major elements (C, N, P, Si, Fe) and the exchange of CO2 and DMS between the ocean and the atmosphere. This model, constrained by the chemical (Fe, P, Si, N), physical (light, temperature) and biological (grazing) controls will explicitly detail the relevant taxonomic groups with respect to C, N, S, Fe, Si cycling. Those are diatoms, nano- and picoplankton, Phaeocystis sp., Coccolithophorideae and N2-fixation cyanobacteria, whose the growth regulation by light, temperature and nutrients will be synthesized by the different partners involved in Ironages. The model will be implemented and calibrated in a 1-D hydrodynamical frame and validated by application to different ocean sites where time-serie data are available (Kerfix, Southern Ocean; North Sea; BATS, Atlantic; HOTS, N. Pacific). The existing SWAMCO model (Lancelot et al. 2000, DSR-I 47:1621-1662) already considering diatoms and nano- and picoplankton as phytoplankton state variables and recently upgraded with an explicit description of Phaeocystis colonies will serve as a basis for this numerical development. The successful candidate will develop the numerical code of the generic model and execute and analyze model runs. Preference will be given to applicants with working knowledge of FORTRAN and methods in numerical simulations as well as basic knowledge of plankton ecology and ocean biogeochemistry.

Post-Doc 2:Optimized biogeochemical model for implementation in a 3D Ice-ocean model for the region south of 30°S The candidate will be involved in the Belgian project BELCANTO (BELgian research on Carbon uptake in the ANTarctic Ocean) an interdisciplinary network of biologists, geochemists, and physical and ecological modelers from 4 Belgian universities (VUB, ULB, UCL, ULg) and 1 institute (MRAC). The objective of BELCANTO is to further develop geochemical proxies and numerical tools for assessing and understanding the present-day functioning of the CO2 biological pump in the iron-limited Southern Ocean and predicting its evolution in response to scenarios of increasing atmospheric CO2. The post-doctoral work will consist in developing different numerical methods to objectively compare various aggregation schemes in order to reduce the number of ecosystem state variables (typically from about 30 to 10) of the existing complex biogeochemical model SWAMCO (Lancelot et al. 2000) and develop a tractable and reliable model to be implemented in a 3D-ice-ocean physical model. The reliability of the simplified SWAMCO code will be evaluated by comparing model simulations with those obtained with the simplified model. Attention will be paid to ensure that the aggregated code keeps the relevant properties of the comprehensive SWAMCO model, in terms of response of the biological production and food-web structure to the interacting controlling factors (iron, wind, ice, grazers) of biomass production in the Southern Ocean.

The successful candidate will have a sound knowledge of FORTRAN and methods in numerical simulations and mathematics as well as basic knowledge of plankton ecology and ocean biogeochemistry.

Applications (CV and motivation) are to be sent to by E-mail or ordinary mail to:
Dr. C. Lancelot (lancelot@ulb.ac.be) ,
Université Libre de Bruxelles,
Ecologie des Systèmes Aquatiques,
CP 221, Bd. du Triomphe, B-1050, Belgium.