We are looking for 2 strong candidates for an immediate start of PhD projects (1st February 2024) on deer behaviour on any of the following topics:
1. Sleep ecology in deer: investigating development of sleep behaviour in fawns in relation to environmental, social, and maternal factors. This project requires strong statistical skills using R; ideally experience with analysis of biologger data (triaxial accelerometers).
2. Early life experience and social behaviour in fallow deer fawns. This project requires strong statistical skills using R; ideally experience with analysis of biologger data (trriaxial accelerometers) and with observation of animal behaviour.
3. Evolution of diversity in parental care strategies in vertebrates: this project takes a large scale comparative perspective to investigate how different care behaviours evolved with one another and in relation to ecological, envioronmental and social factors. The project requires strong statistical skills in R and ideally experience with phylogenetic comparative methods.
4. Investigating parent-offpring conflict in fallow deer mother-fawn pairs over time. The project requires observational skills of animal behaviour and strong motivation to do fieldwork.
Scholarships fund UK nationals and residents only. Interested students should contact Isabella Capellini (I.CapelliniATqub.ac.uk) and Domhnall Jennings (D.JenningsATqub.ac.uk) with the following information:
(i) which project they are interested in and how they would like to develop it;
(ii) why they want to do a PhD and the chosen project in particular;
(iii) what skills they already have that will help them deliver the project successfully and which skills they will need to develop;
(iv) attach their CV and transcript.