Postdoc position opening - cetacean foraging ecology

 We are currently opening a position for a postdoc on marine predator-prey dynamics, with a focus on cetacean foraging ecology.

The Royal NIOZ is looking for an excellent, highly motivated postdoc with a keen interest in marine foraging ecology and food web dynamics. The candidate will be working in a multidisciplinary research project driven by the NIOZ department of Coastal Systems and the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED, University of Amsterdam). The project aims to investigate the dynamics between cetacean predators and prey. This project will investigate the foraging strategy and target prey population of several cetaceans, off the Azores.In this multi-disciplinary project, we link expertise in animal movement, marine ecology and behavioural and social ecology. The study will be integrated in an existing long-term field study and NWO Veni Project, with field work taking place at the Azores (Portugal).

For this project we seek an outstanding candidate with a special interest in predator-prey dynamics and marine foraging ecology, who combines strong analytical skills with excellent capability to conduct fieldwork in the marine environment. The candidate should have a PhD degree in the field of marine ecology/biology or animal behaviour and demonstrated strong ability in quantitative analysis of multivariate data sets, preferably echo sounder, acoustic and/or multi-sensor tag data. The candidate can handle the challenge of integrating data sets from a variety of sensors, and writing computer code (Matlab/R). The project requires a candidate with demonstrated proficiency in and experience with marine field research, including skills such as tracking/data collection, experiments, prey layer tracking. Furthermore, the candidate should have strong social skills, team-spirit, ability to supervise student teams, a strong work-ethic, ability to work independently and an intrinsic interest to explore new avenues of research. Good English oral and written skills are essential, knowledge of Dutch/Portuguese is a pre.

We offer you a fulltime position for 2 years, a yearly 8% vacation allowance, year-end bonus and flexible employment conditions. Our labour policies are based on the Collective Labour Agreement of Research Centres (WVOI). Cost of relocation and help with housing is provided by the Royal NIOZ. The candidate will be employed by NIOZ. The work will be executed at NIOZ (Texel Island, the Netherlands) and University of Amsterdam.

The full application can be viewed here:
https://www.workingatnioz.com/our-jobs/postdoc-%E2%80%9Cpredator-prey-dynamics-in-the-open-ocean%E2%80%9D.html