Job Opportunity for Postdoc of Terrestrial / Aquatic Ecology in The Netherlands Institute of Ecology
POSTDOC in Terrestrial / aquatic Ecology
The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
The Project Group Biodiversity Research of the NIOO conducts multidisciplinary studies to compare interactions between resources, primary producers, herbivores and their diversity in terrestrial, freshwater and marine benthic habitats. We are looking for a POSTDOC of Terrestrial / aquatic Ecologist (M/F) with vacancy number CTE-BR-08433 to study the influence of environmental gradients and resource quality on herbivore diversity in Dutch terrestrial, freshwater and marine benthic habitats, using a combination of experiments, field sampling and/or modeling.
Job Description:
A key issue in ecology is to identify patterns of ecological functioning and to mechanistically explain which processes underlie these patterns. A major challenge is to determine their generality: Do the same explanations, concepts and mechanisms apply in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems?
The project will compare patterns of consumer diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, using a field sampling program that is based on mechanistic model predictions. There is strong evidence that consumer community composition can have profound direct impacts on ecosystem processes. The study focuses on consumer diversity across ecosystems in view of two major axes of control: (i) primary producer nutritional quality, and (ii)