Mögliche Themen für B.Sc. und M.Sc. Arbeiten in der Abt. Bioklimatologie

In order to make the assignment and supervision of B.Sc. and M.Sc. theses in our Bioclimatology Group more transparent and fairer, the following application procedure should be applied.

Theses Day

Once every semester, we invite all Bachelor and Master students that are interested in writing a thesis in the Bioclimatology Group to our Theses Day. On this day, we supervisors introduce ourselves, present ideas for thesis topics, possible research questions, and the necessary methodology. Please find below the dates for the upcoming Theses Days and sign up for it under stud.IP (Course: Bioclimatology Theses Day).

How It Works

If you are interested in a specific thesis topic, you can apply for it by writing an email to the respective supervisor (within one month after Theses Day, see deadline below). This email may already include your motivation, possible research questions and hypotheses, your skills, and a rough time schedule.
The supervisor will organize a meeting with all interested students to discuss the details and (if needed) select a candidate. Feedback by the supervisor will be provided shortly thereafter.

More information about the application, possible topics, and the general supervision will be given on the Theses Day.

Writing thesis during...	Thesis Day	Application Deadline
... summer semester 2024	Dec 12, 2023, 16:00-17:00 FSR 2.7, Büsgenweg 2	Jan 08, 2024
... winter semester 2023/24	June 27, 2023, 10:00-12:00 FSR 2.7, Büsgenweg 2	July 27, 2023

Possible Topics

Some topics listed below can be worked on as B.Sc. or M.Sc. thesis and thematically adapted accordingly. The thesis can be written in German or English in our group. Own suggestions for topics are also always welcome. Please, also note that each supervisor will only supervise 1-3 theses per semester.

Evaluation of turbulence characteristics and viability of eddy covariance measurements inside agroforestry as function of canopy height (José Ángel Callejas Rodelas)
The main idea is to analyse wind and turbulent flux measurements (either only CO₂, or CO₂ + sensible and latent heat fluxes) inside heterogeneous agroforestry systems and to study how the wind characteristics and fluxes change according to a varying canopy height at one of the experimental sites of the SIGNAL project, Dornburg (Saale). Please find more information here.

Estimating ecosystem water fluxes by combining the approaches of eddy covariance and plant hydraulics (Sharath Paligi, Anne Klosterhalfen) Frequent and intense drought conditions have altered the productivity, structure and susceptibility of our forests leading to large-scale tree mortality. In this scenario, it is essential to understand energy and water fluxes at the ecosystem scale to be able to predict changes in forest ecosystems and to support future forest management decisions. In this study, we aim to understand the water fluxes by combing the eddy covariance and species specific hydraulic approaches. This thesis is offered by the Department of Plant Ecology and Ecosystems Research in close collaboration with the Department of Bioclimatology. Please find more information here.

Assessment of photosynthetic capacity of herbal layer in Hainich during spring (Anne Klosterhalfen) In March, the herbal understory vegetation emerges in the Hainich forest. A relatively large amount of solar radiation reaches the forest floor increasing the photosynthetic activity of the herbal layer, since the deciduous trees are still without leaves. In the overstory, the leaves only start to emerge in late April/early May. In this thesis project, the photosynthetic CO₂ uptake of the herbal layer should be quantified during the beginning of the vegetation period (March-May). For that, measurements should be obtained with the LI-6800 Portable Photosynthesis System at several plots and on multiple days. Moreover, the species composition, degree of coverage and biomass of each plot should be determined. Finally, the CO₂ uptake by the herbal layer can be compared with estimates of CO₂ release by soil respiration and with the CO₂ exchange of the entire forest ecosystem. To do so, a simple photosynthesis model can be build for the herbal layer.

Developement of a quality assessment approach for meteorological data (Anne Klosterhalfen)
Various approaches to check and assess the quality of meteorological measurements of our study sites should be compared. This study will include a literature research for the various approaches, the application of these approaches with the R or python programming languages to the existing measurements, and a thorough comparison of the filtered data. For the various meteorological variables a different combination of approaches can be of advantage.

Evaporation and transpiration from leaf to ecosystem scale over an agricultural area (Anas Emad)
In the context of this work, transpiration should be measured at the agricultural experimental farm Reinshof (i) by means of hand measurements with a photosynthesis device (LI-6800) and (ii) the water fluxes measured on leaf scale should be scaled to the ecosystem and compared with direct eddy covariance measurements. The measurements should be carried out under different environmental conditions over the course of a growing season. The results should give an indication of the reliability of energy fluxes measured at the Reinshof site.

Derivation of the NDVI over grassland (Christian Markwitz)
The so-called 'Normalised difference vegetation index' (NDVI) is an indicator of whether surfaces are covered with vegetation or not and in what condition these plants are. This index is often recorded from satellites. The aim of this work is to derive the NDVI from ground-based measurements of radiant flux densities in the near-infrared and red wavelength range and to compare these measurements with hand-held measurements. The automatic measurements are already running in the Forest Botanical Garden and are to be supplemented by campaign-based hand measurements. It would also be conceivable to compare these measurements with satellite-based measurements.

Influence of calibration of CO₂ concentration for eddy covariance (LI-6262 and LI-7000) and profile (LI-840) systems (Anne Klosterhalfen)
We obtain CO₂ concentration measurements with various infrared gas analyzers at our study sites. These analyzers tend to drift in their measurement accuracy and precision with time, thus, a regular calibration is needed. In this thesis project, the concentration data will be reanalyzed considering the instruments’ offsets detected by each calibration and the drift between two calibrations. The impact of this concentration correction on estimated annual ecosystem fluxes should be quantified.