From: Bearhop, Stuart [mailto:[email protected]]
We have two PhD positions due to start this October. Both working with industry and so have lots of potential with respect to future employment (in both academia and the public sector). Please get in touch if you are interested and pass on to anyone you think might be suitable. Stu PhD Studentships in Ecology Project title: SPATIAL ECOLOGY OF SEROTINE BATS Three-year studentship: tuition fees (UK/EU rate) and annual stipend at current research council rate Primary supervisor: Dr David Hosken Secondary supervisor: Dr Stuart Bearhop Secondary supervisor: Dr Fiona Mathews The Food and Environment Research Agency supervisor: Dr James Aegerter Deadline for applications: 23rd May 2009 (we plan to interview in Cornwall during early June) Project summary: The factors driving variation in the movement patterns of animals underpin a suite of demographic, behavioural and life history traits. Moreover such variation is likely to play a key role in the dynamics of many diseases. For example rabies virus has yet to be found in Serotine bats living in the UK, yet most cases of the disease among bats in mainland Europe have been found in this species. It seems likely that variability in spatial and social dynamics at several scales may explain this observation. This PhD will, for the first time, describe and elucidate movement patterns of Serotine bats over a variety of temporal and spatial scales. Although focussing largely on the ecology of Serotine bats, the project will contribute directly to a larger programme investigating rabies and the potential import of the virus into the UK. There is also the potential for investigations into the causes and consequences of variation in smaller-scale movements (e.g. for foraging) and dispersal/migration movements in this species. The PhD will combine both field and lab approaches using a variety of techniques to investigate the movement of bats (stable isotope analyses, genetic analyses, radio tracking and possibly radar). The studentship will build on the expanding collaborative research programme between The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and the University of Exeter. Fera has a strong track record of work on wildlife disease ecology and has recently established a Wildlife and Emerging Diseases Programme, of which this project will form part. The successful candidate will be based at the Centre for Ecology & Conservation (CEC) at the University of Exeter's new multi-million pound campus in Cornwall. S/he will also spend periods at Fera's laboratories in York and a considerable amount of time in the field. This broad research prospectus will give opportunities for interacting with a range of researchers, field biologists and members of the public. Open to students from the European Union (although your spoken and written English should be of a high standard) the successful candidate will have (or expect) a 1st class or high 2:1 class (or equivalent) degree in biology or related subject, and excellent academic references. Applications from numerate students who have experience of carrying out fieldwork on birds/mammals, or molecular lab work are particularly welcome, as are students who have experience of dealing with members of the public on a regular basis. The work will involve handling live bats, requiring vaccinations against rabies. For informal enquiries contact (David Hosken: [email protected], Stuart Bearhop: [email protected]) Apply by CV and covering letter, providing contact details for two academic referees, to Dr David Hosken: [email protected] Project title: Novel technologies for quantifying ecosystem function and biodiversity Three-year studentship: tuition fees (UK/EU rate) and annual stipend at current research council rate Primary supervisor: Dr Stuart Bearhop Secondary supervisor: Dr Frank Van Veen Secondary supervisor: Dr Andrew Jackson (University College Dublin) The Food and Environment Research Agency supervisor: Dr Robbie McDonald Deadline for applications: 23rd May 2009 (we plan to interview in Cornwall during early June) Project summary: It is widely acknowledged that environmental change is the major threat to global biodiversity. Environmental perturbations (invasive species, pollution, eutrophication etc) may impact ecosystems in many ways and while effects such as species loss are often detectable, other deleterious processes such alterations in the relationships among species (changing food web structure) are much less obvious. Many of these measures of food web structure (e.g. foodweb complexity, food chain length, total niche area, etc.) have been advocated as indicators of ecosystem function and thus understanding such changes may be crucial to the preservation of biodiversity. Moreover being able to measure changes in ecosystem function in a rapid fashion would have the potential to radically improve the evaluation of human impacts on ecosystems. Until recently, proxies for ecosystem function have been largely unexplored perhaps because of the difficulty in generating measures of ecosystem function using conventional approaches (such as building foodwebs with stomach analyses). However recent developments in the field of stable isotopes have the potential to enable ecosystem function metrics to be generated rapidly and could revolutionise the way in which we monitor the environment and enhance our understanding of the key processes involved in structuring communities. The aim of this PhD is to use a series of experiments and "real world" situations to evaluate the use of stable isotopes in generating measures of foodweb structure and in turn biodiversity AND ecosystem assessment. It will also investigate some of the more fundamental questions about the processes driving community structure. Building on the expanding collaborative research programme between the Food and Environment Research Agency and the University of Exeter, the PhD project will combine both field and lab approaches. The successful candidate will be based at the Centre for Ecology & Conservation (CEC) at the University of Exeter's new multi-million pound campus in Cornwall. S/he will also spend periods at Fera's laboratories in York and time in the field. This broad research prospectus will give opportunities for interacting with a range of researchers, field biologists and analysts. Open to students from the European Union (although your spoken and written English should be of a high standard), the successful candidate will have (or expect) a 1st class or high 2:1 class (or equivalent) in biology or related subject, and excellent academic references. Applications from numerate students are particularly welcome. For informal enquiries contact (Stuart Bearhop: [email protected]) Apply by CV and covering letter, providing contact details for two academic referees, to Stuart Bearhop: [email protected] Stuart Bearhop Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology Centre for Ecology and Conservation School of Biosciences University of Exeter Cornwall Campus Penryn Cornwall TR10 9EZ Tel: ++44(0)1326371835 Fax: ++44(0)1326253638 Web: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cornwall/academic_departments/biosciences/staff/profiles/profile.php?id=stuart_bearhop Times Higher University of the Year 2007-08 This email and any attachment may contain information that is confidential, privileged, or subject to copyright, and which may be exempt from disclosure under applicable legislation. It is intended for the addressee only. If you received this message in error, please let me know and delete the email and any attachments immediately. 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