Well, we’ve been a bit unlucky.
We had a fantastic round of applicants for our previously advertised position in palaeo-ecological network modelling, and had offered the position to someone who had great potential.
Well, due to unforeseen circumstances (the person to whom we offered the position received another offer for a longer contract in her existing place of residence; such is life), we now have to re-advertise the position, and this one is open to both genders.
The brief overview of the position follows:
The incumbent will construct networks for Australian palaeo-communities to test for cascading extinctions and ecosystem stability by stochastic virtual ‘removal’ experiments. Rapid and widespread extinction of megafauna species across the globe occurred throughout the Late Quaternary and into the Holocene (~ 50,000 to 5,000 years ago). Both human-driven and climate-influenced models have been proposed to explain these massive waves of extinction , but their outcomes have largely ignored complex ecological relationships to date. Genetic data, fossil records and archaeological archives are the primary source of information for understanding the ecology of long-extinct communities, but these datasets are mostly incomplete so that we can never expect to construct complex ecological networks. However, we can build proxy networks based on analog (modern days) systems and ecologically realistic assumptions validated from present-day ecosystems.
Please visit here (position 17116) to apply. We’ll keep accepting applications up to 28 November 2017, with the view to doing interviews in early December.
Looking forward to some great applicants!
CJA Bradshaw
