POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER IN QUANTITATIVE COMMUNITY ECOLOGY

The Swedish Museum of Natural History (http://www.nrm.se) is one of the leading institutions of its kind in Europe. It combines a venerable tradition and unique collections with cutting-edge research in geology, paleontology and biology. The research at the Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics focuses on computational phylogenetics, population genetics and genomics. We run a DNA sequencing facility and host several national and international infrastructures. More information is available at http://www.nrm.se/en/forskningochsamlingar/bioinformatikochgenetik.9000580.html

The Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics is looking to fill a position of postdoctoral researcher in quantitative community ecology.

The postdoc will be employed in the Insect Biome Atlas project (http://www.insectbiomeatlas.org), an international project aimed at characterizing the diversity of insects in Sweden and Madagascar. The project uses metabarcoding of thousands of Malaise trap and soil samples to study the size, origins, structure and function of local and regional insect biomes. The IBA is a collaboration between the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Fredrik Ronquist), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Tomas Roslin), Stockholm University (Ayco Tack), SciLifeLab/KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Anders Andersson), the Madagascar Biodiversity Centre (Brian Fisher, California Academy of Sciences) and Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland (Piotr Lukasik).


WORK TASKS
To answer questions related to the phenology, composition and role of insect communities, the postdoc will analyse a large data set on insect communities collected across Sweden and Madagascar during an entire year. They will then relate insect community structure to ecosystem functions measured at the same locations. The position will be associated with the Swedish Museum of Natural History, in close collaboration with Tomas Roslin at SLU Uppsala and Ayco Tack at Stockholm University. The candidate is expected to spend time at each collaborating institution.

QUALIFICATIONS
The candidate must hold a Ph.D. degree in community ecology, or a related field. Depending on when the candidate defended his/her PhD thesis, the official employment will either be as a postdoc or researcher. The task requires previous experience with handling and analyzing large datasets in R, and of working at the level of communities. The successful candidate must hold strong and documented interpersonal skills. As additional merits we will consider:
• strong programming skills in R
• excellent communication skills in English
• a publication record strong for their academic age.


OTHER
The application should consist of a personal letter and a CV with a complete publication list (including submitted manuscripts) and the contact details of 2-3 references.