VOLT is looking for curious and dedicated MSc students in biosciences, chemistry, geosciences, data science and computer modelling interested in conducting their thesis projects within a stimulating and collaborative research environment studying production and consumption of biogenic volatile compounds.

Background:

All organisms on our planet produce a wide range of volatile compounds to communicate, cooperate, and compete with each other. These complex, yet invisible, interactions are not only essential to the organisms, but also have profound effects on global climate. While the processes exchanging the main greenhouse gases are well studied, we have a poor understanding of the biological processes releasing or consuming volatile compounds.

Center for Volatile Interactions is a Center of Excellence combining expertise in plant ecology, microbiology, plant/moss-microorganism interactions, marine biology and computer modelling with state-of-the-art instrumentation for analyses of volatile compounds, molecular analyses of microbial community structure and activity, as well as plant growth facilities. Our main ambition is to achieve an overall understanding of the biotic and abiotic parameters controlling the production and consumption of volatile compounds in different environments and how these compounds influence the life of other organisms. We believe that this will lead to a fundamental understanding of how key interactions between organisms and their environment affect the atmospheric burden of volatiles under current and future climates.

Projects:

As an MSc student at VOLT you will be involved in one of the many on-going projects within our center. The specific project depends on your interests and may include quantification of fluxes of volatile compounds between ecosystems, plants and/or microorganisms and the atmosphere; quantification of volatile consumption by microorganisms; experiments unravelling how volatile compounds affect plants and microorganisms across species; and modeling of the biological processes involved in the production and consumption of volatile compounds.

You may gain hands-on experience with experiments involving plants/mosses, microorganisms, soils, marine systems and insight into the effects of climate change on ecosystem-volatile-atmosphere interactions. Methodologies may include PTR-ToF-MS and GC-MS to analyse volatiles, DNA- and RNA-based techniques like metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to study complex microbial communities, and advanced tools for data analyses and ecosystem modelling. Fieldwork in Northern Scandinavia and Greenland may be possible at specific projects.

MSc thesis projects at VOLT will be supervised by two of the five key PIs at VOLT, Center Director Professor Riikka Rinnan, Associate Professor Kathrin Rousk, Assistant Professor Jing Tang, Professor Lasse Riemann and Professor Anders Priemé at the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen. Feel free to contact any of us to learn more about possibilities matching your educational background, curiosity, ambitions and thesis period.

Ecosystem-atmosphere exchange of biogenic volatiles under climate change in the Arctic

We are looking for students interested in conducting their BSc or MSc projects in experiments studying ecosystem-atmosphere exchange of biogenic volatiles under climate change in the Arctic.

Background:

Trace gases in the atmosphere, making up less than 1% of the concentration, play a crucial role in regulating the atmosphere's physical and chemical properties. Among these trace components, biogenic volatiles are a group of highly reactive organic carbon species and they can have an impact on tropospheric air quality, the lifetime of greenhouse gases, and the earth's radiation balance.

In the Arctic region, where anthropogenic pollution is relatively low, biogenic volatile organic carbons (BVOCs) emitted from natural ecosystems play a critical role in cloud formation and air quality. Our group has been a pioneer in measuring BVOC emissions from arctic ecosystems. Within these ecosystems, multiple interfaces, such as aboveground biomass, soils, and plant roots, may produce and degrade BVOCs simultaneously, driven by different mechanisms and influenced by various environmental parameters.

Project:

One of our research goals is to disentangle the different BVOC exchange processes underlying arctic ecosystems. Specifically, in this project, we aim to explore BVOC exchange from the different components of the arctic tundra ecosystem and their response to global change factors, such as temperature, moisture, light, and ambient CO2 concentrations. We will achieve this through incubating mini-ecosystems (mesocosms) from arctic tundra in controlled climate chambers and measuring BVOC exchange from aboveground biomass and the soils using PTR-ToF-MS and GC-MS. Fieldwork may also be involved depending on the progress of the project.

Participating students will gain hands-on experience with conducting experiments with plants, soils, and climate change components, analytical techniques of environmental chemistry, and insight into the effects of climate change on ecosystem-atmosphere interactions. The project will be supervised by Professor Riikka Rinnan and postdoc Yi Jiao at the Center for Volatile Interactions (VOLT) at the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen. Contact us to hear more about possibilities matching with your thesis period (riikkar@bio.ku.dk or yi.jiao@bio.ku.dk).

You can also apply directly here.

We are looking for students interested in conducting their BSc or MSc projects or interns (eg, Erasmus) to our newly established Center of Excellence, Center for Volatile Interactions (VOLT). The specific project will focus on testing and developing different methods of sterilizing soil, plant leaf, and litter samples for biological experiments in laboratory incubations.

Obtaining soil, leaf, and litter samples without biological activity is needed for experiments assessing microbial community functions so that biological processes can be distinguished from chemical and physical ones. Yet, obtaining such samples is challenging as the sterilization procedures affect properties of the samples, such as the chemical composition. Most commonly used sterilization methods include autoclaving and applying gamma radiation. Our preliminary testing has shown that both of these methods are difficult in work focusing on volatile organic compound (VOC) exchange and transformations: VOC release drastically increases as a result of sterilization, although VOC release is in general related to biological activity. In this project, your task will be to compare different sterilization methods on different soil, leaf and/or litter types and test how the different methods affect the chemical composition of organic matter in the samples analyzed by near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS), and release of VOCs. You will aim for developing sterilization methods that work best in terms of sterilization efficiency and applicability for laboratory studies measuring VOCs. It is possible to participate in writing the findings as a scientific publication.

The project will be supervised by Professor Riikka Rinnan (riikkar@bio.ku.dk) and Professor Anders Priemé (aprieme@bio.ku.dk) at the Center for Volatile Interactions (VOLT), Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen. Contact us to hear more about possibilities matching with your thesis period.

You can also apply directly here.

We are recruiting a MSc student to conduct their thesis project at the Center for Volatile Interactions (VOLT) with a fieldwork period at Lake Geneva. The fieldwork campaign will be in the summer 2024, but the actual thesis period can differ starting earlier or later. Background in biology, environmental science, chemistry, geosciences, or related field is fitting.

Background:

Although lakes are recognised as hot-spots for CO2 exchange and the release of greenhouse gases such as methane, they have received little attention for their contribution to the atmospheric burden of other biologically produced trace gases. The contribution of lakes to the flux of isoprene and other volatile organic compounds (VOC) is insufficiently researched. VOC can prolong the lifetime of atmospheric methane, contribute to harmful ozone production in the troposphere, and lead to aerosol formation and cloud condensation nuclei that affect the Earth’s radiation balance. Importantly, the current paradigm that land vegetation is the main source of VOC in terrestrial atmospheres is shifting with the recognition that lakes can release considerable amounts of the climate-active gases isoprene and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and possibly other VOCs.

Project:

The MSc student will join an international research team to conduct field measurements at Lake Geneva. We will sample VOC concentrations in lake surface water and atmosphere to calculate lake-to-atmosphere VOC fluxes. We will also measure fluxes directly using floating chambers. The VOC samples are analyzed by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) at VOLT in Copenhagen. Depending on the length of the thesis period, it may also be possible to conduct controlled experiments to study effects of temperature, light and browning on water VOC fluxes.

You will gain hands-on experience with fieldwork, gas measurements in the field, GC-MS data analysis, and multivariate and univariate statistical analyses. The project is supervised by Professor Riikka Rinnan from VOLT and Associate Professor Michael Steinke from University of Essex, UK. Contact Riikka Rinnan (riikkar@bio.ku.dk) for any questions.

You can also apply directly here.