Prospective Students and Postdoctoral Researchers
We are always keen to recruit dynamic and scientifically motivated researchers to the lab. We often have positions advertised on this page but if you have your own ideas please do get in touch at any time and I would be happy to discuss options with you for joining the group.
Currently available positions in the lab
Two exciting two-year postdoctoral fellowships are currently available (deadlines 31st March 2023):
1. The genomics of historic coral bleaching
The postdoctoral scholar will be based at Umeå University in Sweden, home of the pioneering discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors - a revolution in genetic engineering that has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Background: Symbioses are prevalent across many biomes and can be critical to the biodiversity, productivity and survival of some of the most charismatic ecosystems on Earth. However, sometimes these symbioses break down. Whilst this may be survivable for the individual partners, it can lead to widespread death of both host and symbiont. Here we use coral reefs as a model system to empirically investigate symbiotic breakdown.
The ecosystem services provided by coral reefs are worth over €78 billion annually and include coastline protection, tourism, food and medical derivatives. However, the health of corals can be significantly impacted by coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is the loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae) from tropical corals and can be caused by stressors such as thermal perturbations, disease and freshwater runoff. Thermal perturbations are thought to be a major bleaching trigger and have been well documented in conjunction with major global bleaching events. These mass bleaching events cause widespread coral death, with catastrophic ecosystem and service provision impacts.
Despite the devastation caused by severe coral bleaching, it is still difficult to assess if corals will survive in the warmer oceans projected for the end of the century as we do not fully understand the stability of the symbiotic relationship, particularly over long timescales. To better understand the relevance of current symbiotic breakdowns and their role in the future survival of both host and symbiont, the investigation of historic symbiotic breakdowns in required. This postdoctoral position will work with the PIs’ research groups to focus on aDNA extractions of coral and symbiont genetic material from recent and past coral skeleton.
Project advances beyond the state-of-the-art: We anticipate that the postdoctoral fellow will make key advances in coral bleaching science by: 1) tuning the technique for aDNA extraction from the coral skeleton and 2) collaborating widely within the PIs’ research groups to determine trajectories in coral bleaching recorded in the coral skeleton.
This postdoc will be based in the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences and also the Umeå Marine Sciences Centre. They will be supervised by a multidisciplinary team with complementing expertise in coral bleaching and aDNA.
Specific Qualifications
To qualify for the fellowship, the candidate should have a PhD degree, or a foreign degree that is deemed equivalent, in with a significant components of aDNA methodology
Contact Information
Professor Nick Kamenos, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Umeå Marine Sciences Centre, nick.kamenos@umu.se
Dr Heidi Burdett, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences, heidi.burdett@umu.se
Dr Eric Capo, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences, eric.capo@umu.se
Application process
Full details of the application process are available here.
Application deadline: 31st March 2023
2. The land-sea continuum; burial of terrestrial carbon in marine sediments
The postdoctoral scholar will be based at Umeå University in Sweden, home of the pioneering discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors - a revolution in genetic engineering that has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Background: Nature-based solutions to climate change are recognised as a mechanism for drawing down carbon from the atmosphere. Together with geoengineering, this natural solution is required for reduction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere which are contributing to global warming. At the land-sea interface and continental shelf, sequestration and storage of carbon by marine ecosystems and sediments is a globally significant process that locks away carbon for hundreds to thousands of years. Importantly, the presence of both sequestration and efficient burial are required for marine systems to be effective nature-based solutions. For the subarctic, there is emerging evidence that at millennial time scales, ca. 50% of organic carbon buried in shallow-water marine sediments may be organic material derived from terrestrial and inland water systems via riverine discharge.
The source and type of the organic material entering the oceans will also determine the role marine sediment stores play in climate regulation and sensitivity to disturbance. In particular, sources of terrestrial organic material supplying primarily refractory carbon likely endow marine sediments with better capacity to act as a nature-based solution to climate change.
Project advances beyond the state-of-the-art: We anticipate that the postdoctoral fellow will make key advances in carbon science by; 1) determining the riverine supply of organic carbon from differing terrestrial land uses, 2) its fate in marine waters and sediments, and 3) detecting marine hotspots of organic carbon burial, as well as the carbon donor sources and pathways. These advances will be made by quantifying and determining the source (terrestrial vs. marine) and stability of organic carbon which are transported to and buried in marine sediments of the Baltic Sea along gradients of riverine discharge with contrasting land-use.
This postdoc will be based in the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences and also the Umeå Marine Sciences Centre. They will be supervised by a multidisciplinary team with complementing expertise in marine and terrestrial carbon cycling.
Specific Qualifications
To qualify for the fellowship, the candidate should have a PhD degree, or a foreign degree that is deemed equivalent, in one of the following fields, biology, biogeochemistry, chemistry, geography or earth science. The candidate shoud have strong skills in organic / inorganic carbon analysis.
Contact Information
Professor Nick Kamenos, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Umeå Marine Sciences Centre, nick.kamenos@umu.se
Professor Jan Karlsson, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Climate Impacts Research Centre, jan.p.karlsson@umu.se
Dr Cristian Gudasz, Dept. Ecology and Environmental Sciences, cristian.gudasz@umu.se
Application process
Full details of the application process are available here.
Application deadline: 31st March 2023