The Warkentin Lab at Boston University seeks applications for a PhD student to work on our NSF-funded project, 'The Development of Adaptive Embryo Behavior

Project Overview

When to hatch is an essential decision embryos make, based on 
environmental cues. Hatching is also a physical feat that embryos 
perform. The ability to assess cues, exit the egg, and survive outside 
the egg all change as embryos develop. Thus, under the same external 
conditions, both what embryos can do and what they should do to survive 
change developmentally. The overall project examines the development and 
regulation of environmentally cued hatching in red-eyed treefrogs, 
/Agalychnis callidryas/. These embryos hatch up to 40% prematurely to 
escape from threats to the egg, using cues in at least two sensory 
modalities, and multiple selective trade-offs shaping hatching timing 
are known. The project integrates work on hatching mechanisms and 
performance, sensory system development, and hatching decision rules for 
responses to simple hypoxia cues and complex mechanosensory cues, to 
examine why and how development changes behavior. It will improve our 
understanding of embryo lives, behavioral development, and how animals 
use different kinds of information to make decisions.

Position Description

The student will participate in multiple aspects of the project and be 
mentored to develop a dissertation that builds on some component of the 
project and extends to address independent questions. The student will 
be based in the Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution group at BU, conduct 
field research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa, 
Panama and, depending on specific interests, may be co-mentored by 
mechanical engineer Greg McDaniel.

For more information see the lab website:

sites.bu.edu/warkentinlab/people/prospective-students/

For specific inquiries about the position, email Karen Warkentin 
(kwarken@bu.edu). Include your CV, transcript, 
and a statement of why you are interested in this position and how it 
relates to your overall goals and prior experience. Formal applications 
to the graduate school are due 7 December.

Karen Warkentin
Associate Professor of Biology
Boston University
     and
Research Associate
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

kwarken@bu.edu