POSTDOC: ECO-PHYSIOLOGY OF FUNGUS-FARMING ANTS, COPENHAGEN
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Eco-Physiology and Molecular Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen
A two-year postdoctoral fellowship on the eco-physiology of fungus-farming ants is available from June 1, 2018 in the Section for Ecology and Evolution within the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
The fellowship will be part of a 5-year research project financed by an ERC Starting Grant. Led by Assistant Professor Jonathan Shik (www.jonathanshik.com), the project will be based in the thriving research environment of the Centre for Social Evolution (http://socialevolution.ku.dk/home/), and will involve fieldwork in the Panamanian tropical rainforests at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (http://www.stri.si.edu/). The successful applicant will have experience and interest in ecology, evolution, physiology, microbial ecology, and molecular techniques.
Project Overview
The project will focus on the remarkable lineage of leafcutter ants (genus Atta) that harvest fresh vegetation and use it as compost to produce domesticated fungal crops in huge underground nests that feed massive super organismal colonies with millions of workers. We will explore how leafcutter ants have managed to grow a single cultivar lineage from Texas to Argentina, thriving across extreme contemporary rainfall and temperature gradients and across diverse climates over millions of years. Projects will combine field experiments in Panamanian rainforests and integrative laboratory studies of cultivar gene expression to resolve the mechanisms governing the resilience of industrial-scale fungus farming in ants within diverse tropical insect communities.
The deadline for applications is February 15, 2018 at 11:59 PM CET.
For more details and information about how to apply, see:
http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/?show=146492