You will be welcomed in the Joint Research Unit Eco&Sols in Montpellier (France), which has 70 permanent staff from INRAE, IRD, Institut Agro Montpellier and Cirad. You will join the ALAMOD project, which aims to compare and improve models of carbon dynamics at the ecosystem level.Your mission will be to evaluate and improve the STICS model in simulating the soil organic matter dynamics. STICS is a soil-crop model that simulates crop growth, as well as the water, carbon, and nitrogen balances at the plot level. It is being developed by a community of scientists from different disciplines.You will be more specifically in charge of:Evaluating the STICS model’s ability to simulate the long-term dynamics of soil organic matter (carbon and nitrogen stocks) in a variety of agricultural situations, soils and climates. You will use a dataset from long-term experiments, which is under development in the ALAMOD project, and you will also help to complete it.Evaluating and improving the simulation of plant litter decomposition in the short and long term using the STICS model. You will modify and calibrate the decomposition module of STICS it to improve the model’s genericity and better account for certain situations (e.g. crop residues left on the soil surface, soil with a low mineral nitrogen availability, etc.). You will use a dataset gathering data on the decomposition of various plant litters under controlled (laboratory incubations) and field conditions. Modifications to the model formalisms will be carried out in collaboration with the IT pole of the STICS team.Writing publications.

Join CIRAD in Montpellier as a postdoctoral researcher and help improve soil organic matter modeling in tropical cropping systems through the ALAMOD project.