Lu, Jing-Zhong

I work as a postdoc on the DFG project (2021 – 2024) entitled “Coupling soil physics and soil food web ecology to unravel how soil habitat structure shape trophic interactions and carbon dynamics” in collaboration with Stefan Scheu and Amandine Erktan (UMR Eco&Sols, IRD, France).

Soil pores accommodate diverse soil invertebrates that are linked by trophic relations. The characteristics of the pore space define the habitat of the soil organisms, and where they can move and interact with predators and prey. My main goal is to study what determines the feeding ecology of soil animals. My vision is to better understand how the size-based segregation of soil organisms within the pore space act as a determinant of trophic interactions at soil pore scale. I am mainly interested in microarthropods (Oribatida, Gamasina, Collembola) and aim to decipher the trophic relations between soil mesofauna, microfauna and soil microorganisms. I use an interdisciplinary approach at the crossroad of soil food web ecology and soil physics. Specific questions addressed in my postdoc are:

• How does soil pore size limit resource accessibility of soil microarthropods?
• What are the roles of body size and form of soil mesofauna in trophic interactions?
• How does soil physical structure mediate the top-down control in soil?

Short CV

2017 – 2021 PhD, Community structure and guild patterns of soil decomposers in European beech forests enriched with conifers, University of Göttingen

2014 – 2017 MSc, Decomposer-plant interactions: effects of varying densities of Collembola on the flowering phenology of Arabidopsis thaliana, University of Bremen

2009 – 2013 BSc, Competition between an invasive plant and its native congener: case study of Alternatnthera philoxeroides and A. sessilis, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)

Publications

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-tG9bfUAAAAJ&hl=en