We are recruiting a PhD student for a USDA-funded graduate assistantship to work on Beaver Impacts across the Northern Forest, starting in May 2013 at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse. The project goal is to model impacts to forest communities of beaver foraging at landscape scales (e.g., Adirondack Park, other Northern Forest regions) using ecological relationships developed at finer local scales (e.g., foraging intensity and distance from ponds and wetlands) and existing geospatial data. This project, which builds on pilot studies by the P.I.s in the central Adirondacks, will allow forest managers to predict the spatial distribution, potential footprint and harvest intensity of beaver impacts within the Adirondacks, and compare them to other disturbances that affect forest health, timber productivity, recreation value, and delivery of ecosystem services such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The project team includes P.I.s who focus on ecohydrology and riparian forest ecosystems (John Stella; www.esf.edu/faculty/stella/), wildlife and landscape ecology (Jacqueline Frair; www.esf.edu/faculty/frair/) and geospatial modeling and statistics (Eddie Bevilacqua; www.esf.edu/faculty/bevilacqua/).
Position requirements include a master's degree in natural resources, ecology, wildlife biology, statistics or related field. Strong quantitative skills are required, including excellent GIS skills and statistics; training in maximum likelihood and/or Bayesian methods are desirable. Candidates must have scientific writing experience, with preference given to those with published papers in peer-reviewed journals. Must work effectively with natural resource agencies and be comfortable giving public and academic presentations. The position comprises a combination of teaching and research assistantships, with an annul stipend, full tuition waiver, and expenses for field work provided. Qualified candidates should send a letter of interest, CV, GRE scores, master's degree transcripts, a writing sample (manuscript, report, etc), and contact information for 2-3 references to Dr. John Stella ([email protected]) by Dec. 20, 2012. More information on SUNY- ESFs Graduate Program in Environmental Science can be found online at www.esf.edu/environmentalscience/graduate/.
