PhD
position in Visual Ecology (Prof. John Endler)
Summary: We
would like to offer a PhD position aligned with a recently ARC-funded Discovery
project to investigate how animals process highly contrasting colour patterns
using behavioral experiments with guppies or bowerbirds.
Background: Animals often use complex colour patterns to find food, avoid
predation, attract mates and compete for resources. However, after several
decades of research on how (and if) animals perceive colour, and the threshold
at which animals can detect differences between colours, we remain surprisingly
ignorant of how animals process highly contrasting colours.
Second, we have a poor understanding of how these colours interact in complex
patterns that provide signaling or camouflage mechanisms. We aim to understand
how highly contrasting colours are perceived by animals; determine how
different colour pattern elements have to be, relative to their positions, to
maximise visual contrast; and examine highly contrasting colour patterns
in the context of colour-driven tasks in both terrestrial and aquatic
environments.
Your
PhD project will be an important contribution to this work, and will involve:
· Behavioural
experiments with guppies or bowerbirds
· Fieldwork
· Neurobiological
methods and visual modelling
Location: You will be based at Deakin
University, Geelong, Australia in the laboratory of Prof. John Endler. You will
have access to world-class equipment and made-to-order facilities, and also
stimulating academic environment in the Centre for Integrative Ecology. You
will also work in collaboration with Dr. Karen Cheney and Prof. Justin Marshall
at the University of Queensland, Brisbane with further opportunity to work with
international colour vision experts Prof. Daniel Osorio (University of Sussex,
UK) and Prof. Misha Vorobyev (University of Auckland, NZ).
Funding: We
will help you to apply for a PhD scholarship to cover your tuition fees and
stipend. Depending on your nationality and location, this could include:
Australian Postgraduate Award (APA, Australian students); International
Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS, international students), or a similar
scholarship from your own country. The ARC Discovery Project will cover travel,
fieldwork and experimental costs.
We encourage high quality candidates to
contact us directly at:
Prof. John Endler (john.endler@deakin.edu.au)
(please note: in the field until beginning of Jan)
Dr. Karen Cheney (k.cheney@uq.edu.au)