Back

Location
Starnberg
Bayern, Germany
Date Posted
19 Dec 2024

Visit website


Type
PhD Project
International Max Planck Research School for Organismal Biology

PhD position on Ecological Genomics in Urbanizing Burrowing Owls

Starnberg
Bayern, Germany
19 Dec 2024

NOTE: this position listing has expired and may no longer be relevant!

Position Description


The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Organismal Biology offers several fully-funded PhD positions. The IMPRS is based in southern Germany and is jointly organized by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen and Radolfzell and the University of Konstanz. Outstanding students of all nationalities with a deep commitment to basic research in Organismal Biology are invited to apply.
All students accepted to the program will be supported by stipends or contracts. The program offers a dedicated teaching program, high quality research experience, and outstanding research facilities in an inspiring research and living environment. The working language is English. Each PhD student receives individual supervision and mentoring and is guided in her/his research work by a PhD advisory committee.

Project abstract: Recent colonizations of urban habitats represent an ideal situation in which to study contemporary adaptation to novel environments in the wild. Several such adaptations at the behavioural level have been reported for the American burrowing owl. However, nothing is known how this translates to changes in the genome. Potential scenarios range from adaptive plasticity to different forms of directional selection. The successful candidate will exploit fresh genomic sequence data of multiple contrasting populations in urban and rural sites as well as of temporal samples of adapting owl populations. The analyses will extend to association tests between specific genomic loci and hypothesized behavioural traits within populations. Interested candidates should have a strong interest in population genomics and bioinformatics with an evolutionary biology background.
Main advisor Jakob Mueller, MPIO Seewiesen

Applicants should hold a MSc or equivalent degree in biology or a related discipline at the point of enrollment.


How to Apply

To apply for this position, it is strongly recommended to do this via the webpage of the International Max Planck Research School for Organismal Biology (http://www.orn.mpg.de/2383/Application). Deadline of application is January 15th, 2015. Interviews with the applicants are scheduled for Mid-March.