Postdoctoral position on Eco-evolutionary dynamics of microbial eukaryotes

Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment
The Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment (www.slu.se/aquatic-sciences) is working with applied environmental science, with a national responsibility for assessing the condition of Swedish surface waters with respect to water chemistry, pollution and aquatic biota. The department has some 130 employees. The research focuses on geochemical and hydrological processes, aquatic ecology and biodiversity, as well as on aquatic ecotoxicology and environmental chemistry. The department is part of a Soil-Water-Environment cluster, a recently established competence centre for landscape-level processes that also includes the Departments of ‘Soil and Environment’ and ‘Energy and Technology’.
Read more about our benefits and what it is like to work at SLU at https://www.slu.se/en/about-slu/work-at-slu/

Duties:
The position will be embedded in a dynamic and new research group in microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. We study microorganisms and their processes in nature using a combination of molecular, cellular and isotope tracer methods. Tools such as metabarcoding, genomics, and phylogenetic analyses are frequently used and the research includes both laboratory experiments and bioinformatic analyses. The postdoc will engage and lead a research project to investigate ecological and evolutionary processes underlying biodiversity patterns of microbial eukaryotes (aka protists). Current knowledge of biodiversity patterns is informed by the study of macroorganisms such as plants, animals, and fungi, but fundamental questions remain unanswered in the smaller protists despite the fact that they comprise the vast majority of eukaryotic diversity. We look for a highly motivated candidate to use large environmental metabarcoding data to investigate how ecological niches evolve along the eukaryotic tree of life, as well as comparative genomics of diatoms as a model for how genomes are impacted by different ecological conditions.

The work will consist of global-scale analyses of large environmental metabarcoding data using a variety of bioinformatic tools to evaluate the tempo and mode of ecological niche evolution across different clades of protists, and to assess whether closely related taxa share more similar niches. The successful candidate will also generate genomic data for several freshwater diatom species. You will also perform comparative genomics of freshwater and marine diatoms to learn more about how genomes evolve under different environmental conditions. As a postdoc you will engage in independent research, but do so as part of a local and internationally distributed team of expert scientists. This work is part of an international collaborative research project and will take place in Sweden, Norway, and France, in a collaboration with the University of Oslo, and the École Normale Supérieure. You will be able to influence the study design and will get to report the work in scientific publications. There will also be opportunities to train and learn new techniques and to supervise student projects.

Qualifications:
We look for a candidate with availability to conduct a 3-year project, where part of the research must be conducted in Norway and France from February 2023 to December 2024. The successful candidate must have a solid training and PhD degree in biology, bioengineering or related subjects, with strong merits in environmental sequencing, and phylogenetics. Preference will be given to the candidate with previous experience and publications on long-read metabarcoding and phylogenetic comparative analyses. The candidate further needs to demonstrate documented experience and knowledge sufficient for using modern DNA-based methods to analyze complex microbial communities, as well as bioinformatic skills to analyze protist sequences from metabarcoding data. The applicant must also be able to independently perform bioinformatic processing and statistical analyses of protist sequences, ribosomal RNA sequences and metagenomes retrieved from a wide variety of aquatic and terrestrial habitats. The bioinformatic analyses will involve handling large environmental data, phylogenetic comparative analyses, and assembly and annotation of genomes tools such as RAxML-NG, EPA-NG, Genesis, BayesTraits, RPANDA, eggNOG and Maker. Statistical analyses and visualization of the results are expected to be done using R. We expect the holder of the position to independently handle these tasks without any further training. Proficiency in English (both written and spoken) is required, as is demonstrated ability to effectively and clearly communicate research results in scientific publications. Finally, it is a merit to demonstrate grant writing skills by having received a longer (> 2 years) research grant as applying PI.

As postdoctoral appointments are career-developing positions for junior researchers, we are primarily looking for candidates with a doctoral degree that is three years old at most.

Place of work:
Uppsala, Sweden, Oslo, Norway, and Paris, France

Form of employment:
Temporary employment, 36 months

Extent:
100%

Starting date:
2022-09-15 or according to agreement.

Application:
We welcome your application no later than 2022-07-31, use the button below.

Academic union representatives:
https://internt.slu.se/en/my-employment/employee-associations/kontaktpersoner-vid-rekrytering/



The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is a world-class international university with research, education and environmental assessment within the sciences for sustainable life. Its principal sites are in Alnarp, Umeå and Uppsala, but activities are also conducted at research stations, experimental parks and educational establishments throughout Sweden. We bring together people who have different perspectives, but they all have one and the same goal: to create the best conditions for a sustainable, thriving and better world.

SLU has just over 3,000 employees, 5,000 students and a turnover of SEK 3 billion. The university has invested heavily in a modern, attractive environment on its campuses.

www.slu.se