BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY OF SAILFIN AND AMAZON MOLLIES Teaching/Research Assistantship for M. S.
Applications are being sought for one student interested in pursuing an academic career studying various aspects of the behavior of sailfin and Amazon mollies starting no later than June 2008. Amazon mollies, Poecilia formosa, are a unisexual (all female) species of molly that are essentially sexual parasites as they require sperm from the closely related bisexual sailfin molly, P. latipinna but dont use it to fertilize their eggs. Conflict exists between male sailfin mollies that prefer to mate with conspecifics and the Amazon mollies that require matings with these males. We have three months of summer funding for a Research Assistant to work on some aspects of this system and can supply Instructional Assistant (teaching labs) for the fall and spring terms. See http://www.bio.txstate.edu/~gabor/gabor.htm for details about our lab and our research interests. The Department of Biology offers a strong environment in evolutionary ecology as the basis for training in behavioral ecology. Students will benefit from interactions with other faculty interested in evolutionary questions such as: Jim Ott (Insect-plant interactions and ecological genetics), Noland Martin (Plant population genetics), and Chris Nice (Speciation in insects and phylogeography). We have both General Biology and Population and Conservation Biology MS programs available. GRE (verbal and quantitative) scores of 1000 for MS, and a GPA of 2.75 are minimum requirements. For more information on admissions see http://www.bio.txstate.edu/grad/GradGuide.html . Please also see the Department of Biology (http://www.bio.txstate.edu/) and Texas State University (http://www.txstate.edu/) web sites for more information. To apply for this job please send a statement of interest and a CV/resume of related research, coursework, GPA, GRE, and any other relevant experience by February 28, 2008 to Caitlin Gabor by email (gabor at txstate.edu). Reference letters for top candidates will be solicited at a later date. Applications will be reviewed as they come in, and may also be reviewed after the target date if the position has not been filled.
