The newly established Ecosystems and Global Change Group (EGC) at the
University of Cambridge has a fully-funded 3-year PhD studentship
available for EU/EEA residents. Interested PhD candidates from outside
the EEA can contact Dr Tanentzap to explore other funding options.
The EGC group studies how disturbances alter the functioning and
biodiversity of the world's ecosystems in order to generate solutions
for mitigating the impacts of global change. The successful candidate
will test how evolutionary history influences ecosystem functioning and
patterns of biodiversity. They will develop theory with experiments
involving microbial and plankton communities and test the generality of
predictions by analysing large-scale vegetation datasets. Comparative
phylogenetic approaches will be used to reconstruct the evolution of
selected functional traits that influence species dynamics and ecosystem
functioning. There will also be the potential to learn molecular
biology techniques and use these to identify, and measure the expression
of, genes underlying functional traits within an evolutionary framework.
Please email a cover letter describing research interests and
experience, CV, and the names of 2-3 referees to Andrew Tanentzap
([email protected]) before the 10th of December 2013. Candidates with
strong quantitative skills and a record of excellence in scientific
publishing are especially encouraged to apply. For further details see:
www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/andrewtanentzap
The University of Cambridge is one of the world's leading Universities,
with an outstanding reputation for academic achievement and research.
The Department of Plant Sciences is home to 19 Heads of Groups and over
100 research students and postdoctoral researchers in ecology and
evolution, physiology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. The
Department is also a founding member of the Cambridge Conservation
Initiative (www.conservation.cam.ac.uk), set to house the world's
largest cluster of international biodiversity conservation
organizations.
--
Andrew J. Tanentzap
Head of Ecosystems and Global Change Group
Department of Plant Sciences
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge, UK
CB2 3EA
http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/andrewtanentzap
