Ph.D. student in Behavioural Ecology

The Faculty of Sciences, Department Biology-Ethology of the University
of Antwerp and the Terrestrial Ecology Unit of the University of Ghent
are seeking to fill the following vacancy (m/f):

Ph.D. student in Behavioural Ecology

Job description:
Raising offspring requires a substantial amount of parental care and
it may be necessary that both parents contribute. While parents both
benefit from the overall level of parental care, they only pay a cost
for their own contribution. As such, sexual conflict arises because of
different fitness optima for a given behaviour. Consequently, parents
will negotiate how much to invest, which will depend on how well they are
informed about offspring need and about the contribution of their partner.
In the proposed project we will make use novel GPS tracking devices
to investigate parental decision rules, along with their consequences
for offspring development in great detail. We will apply sophisticated
cross-fostering experiments in a wild population of individually marked
Lesser black-backed gulls, a long-lived migratory species breeding in a
heterogeneous environment. We combine large scale behavioral observations,
physiological measures and state-of-the-art tracking approaches. The
latter will also enable us to track carry-over effects of the rate of
parental care throughout the annual cycle.

 Profile and requirements:
* you have a Master degree in Biology or an equivalent degree in
  life sciences.
* you are an enthusiastic and motivated student with a strong interest
  in Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology, who likes working in the field
  under at times harsh conditions. Preferentially you have already
  experience in fieldwork, but this is not essential.
* you have good organizational, writing and presentation skills and
  should be able to work well both independently and in a team
  environment.

We offer:
* a Ph.D. scholarship for one year, and extension for another three
  years after positive evaluation.
* the project will be carried out in close collaboration with Ghent
  University (joint FWO funded project).
* during fieldwork, you will form part of a small research team (1-2
  PhD students, 2 field assistants) studying different aspects of
  gull ecology.
* based at the University of Antwerp, the successful applicant will join
  a young, dynamic and stimulating group of researchers working on all 4
  major aspects of animal behaviour (causation, development, function,
  evolution), with particular emphasis on bird family life (maternal
  effects, phenotypic plasticity, parent-offspring conflict & co-
  adaptation) (see https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/wendt-mueller/ and
  http://www.ecology.ugent.be/terec/)
* the preferred starting date is 1 January 2015

Interested?

* Please send all application material including 1) your curriculum
  vitae 2) a brief (250 words) summary of your reasons for applying and
  3) contact information of max. 2 referees) as single PDF-file to:
  Wendt.Mueller@uantwerpen.be. Review of the applications will start on
  31 October 2014 and continue until the position is filled, interviews
  of short-listed candidates will be held early November.

* For more information, contact Prof. Wendt Müller
  (Wendt.Mueller@uantwerpen.be) or Prof. Luc Lens (Luc.Lens@ugent.be)

Wendt Müller
University of Antwerp
Department of Biology-Ethology
NEW: Campus Drie Eiken C 1.11
Universiteitsplein 1
2610 Antwerp (Wilrijk), Belgium

NEW: e-mail: Wendt.Muller@uantwerpen.be
NEW: web: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/wendt-mueller/

NEW: tel +32 32652288
fax +32 32652271
mobile:+32 473567276

Müller Wendt