PhD Studentship in Community Ecology, University of Zurich

PhD Studentship in Community Ecology, University of Zurich  Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zürich Biodiversity faces many threats. Two of particular importance are reductions in the amount of  suitable habitat and changes in environmental conditions. Predicting the consequences of these joint threats to biodiversity requires an understanding of effects across multiple levels of ecological organisation: individual, population, community, and ecosystem. Also required is an understanding  of how effects at one level of organisation create knock-on effects at other levels of organisation.
For example, how changes in individual behaviour translate into a  change in population dynamics. Experiments with small laboratory-based aquatic communities provide an excellent tool with which to study effects of habitat availability and environmental change across levels of ecological  organisation. Such communities allow long-term experiments with carefully constructed  communities, containing few to many species, short to long food chains, and low to high trophic diversity. Long-term experiments (many generations of the dominant  organisms) can be carried out during quite short experiments, and observations can be made across levels of ecological  organisation. Mathematical models can be used to link observations across levels of organisation.
The project will give the successful applicant an opportunity to  perform unique experimental investigations that will advance knowledge about joint effects of habitat size and environmental change.

The PhD will be jointly supervised by Prof. Owen Petchey and Dr.  Dennis Hansen, and will be held in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich,  Switzerland. Funding is available for at least three years. Applicants  must have a Masters Level  Degree in Ecology or a closely related subject, and are asked to provide a CV, including the names and contact details of three academic referees, and a one page  research proposal based on the general project description and relevant published literature.
Informal enquiries should be made to o.petchey@sheffield.ac.uk or dmhansen@stanford.edu. Applications should be emailed as a single  pdf-file directly to Owen Petchey before January 31st 2011.

For more information
The University of Zürich: www.uzh.ch
Life Sciences Zürich Graduate School: www.lszgs.ch
Faculty of Science: www.mnf.uzh.ch/forschung/institute-der-mnf.html
Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies: www.ieu.uzh.ch
Petchey Group (Sheffield address∑ will change to Zürich soon):
owenpetchey.staff.shef.ac.uk
Dennis Hansen: plant-animal.org