Postdoc o doctorado estudiando jerbillos del Sáhara

Oferta compartida por Nuria

Phylogenomics and evolution of speciose desert rodents (genera: Gerbillus)

We are looking for an enthusiastic student / researcher to join project and expeditions to the Sahara to collect data and accomplish research / PhD thesis. The selected candidate will apply with the team for an independent research position / PhD scholarship. Several financing opportunities exist within the supervisor team institutions (see below).

Ongoing climate change, and extreme weather events, raised concern for species survival throughout the world. Some organisms have long coped with those problems, by adapting to new conditions and seeking shelter in suitable patchy areas. Therefore a promising approach to predict the future of the species is to first reconstruct its evolutionary past. North Africa has been exposed to frequent, and repeated, climatic oscillations. Therefore, the Sahara desert can serve as a laboratory to study how species respond to climate change and extreme conditions. We study speciose Gerbillus rodents (estimated > 50 species) that inhabit arid habitats and deserts. Due to remoteness of the area evolutionary history and ecology of Saharan inhabitants has been rarely studied. Our previous research showed high cryptic diversity within Gerbillus rodents, and suggested ecological processes involved in diversification.

With field work in remote and distinct geographic locations, expected to host endemic and rare lineages and species, and sequencing of historical museum samples, this project aims in reconstructing phylogenetic history (phylogenomics) to study biogeography and mechanisms of diversification in harsh and fluctuating desert conditions.

Application:
Send (1) a short letter of interest (1 page), (2) CV (1-3 pages) and (3) list of publications (all integrated in one pdf file) to: boratyns@cibio.up.pt

Team:

• Zbyszek Boratyński (boratyns@cibio.up.pt, https://boratyns.wixsite.com/zbyszek), BIOPOLIS, CIBIO/InBio, Research Center in Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, University of Porto, Portugal
• Molly McDonough (mollymcdonough@gmail.com, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Molly-Mcdonough-2), Chicago State University, Field Museum of Natural History and National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA
• Josef Bryja (bryja@ivb.cz, https://www.ivb.cz/en/person/josef-bryja/), Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Financing opportunities:
Fellowship / contract through FCT foundation: https://www.fct.pt/ 

PhD scholarship at the Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic):
https://www.muni.cz/en
PhD Biodiv studentship: https://www.biodiv.pt/en/

References:
Bryja et al. 2022. Rodents of the Afar Triangle (Ethiopia): geographical isolation causes high level of endemism. Biodivers Conserv, 10.1007/s10531-022-02354-4
Boratyński et al. 2017. Repeated evolution of camouflage in speciose desert rodents. Sci Rep, 10.1038/s41598-017-03444-y
Ndiaye et al. 2016. Evolutionary systematics and biogeography of the arid habitat‐adapted rodent genus Gerbillus (Rodentia, Muridae): a mostly Plio‐Pleistocene African history. J Zoolog Syst Evol, 10.1111/jzs.12143
Ndiaye et al. 2016. Taxonomic hypotheses regarding the genus Gerbillus (Rodentia, Muridae, Gerbillinae) based on molecular analyses of museum specimens. ZooKeys, 10.3897/zookeys.566.7317