PhD Studentship in Genetic diversity, Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change
The project will focus on three related questions.
1. The relationship between within-species genetic diversity using target soil and aquatic taxa and among species diversity (measured using conventional taxonomy and DNA barcoding) at replicated sites within the region. Within species diversity will be estimated used genome-scale molecular markers (single nucleotide polymorphisms identified using RAD-tags)
2. An investigation of whether invertebrate populations which possess high genetic diversity are more resilient to experimentally manipulated climate change than those with low genetic diversity.
3. The relationship between within and among-species genetic diversity in selected sites with different climate-change related environmental stressor levels. Stressors will include pH (aquatic) temperature/altitude (soil).
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Research into the genetic component of resilience and resistance has only recently become a focus of attention in climate change science (e.g. Luck et al 2003, Hughes and Stachowicz 2004; Reusch et al 2005) and remains at the very early stages. This project will use cutting edge molecular methods coupled with well developed ecological approaches to address some fundamentally important questions in climate change.
The Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosicences, Cardiff University is both well-known and well set-up for this kind of research, with population genomics (e.g. Joost et al 2007; Li et al 2010) and studies of climate change in aquatic (Durance and Ormerod 2007) and soil invertebrates (Emmerson et al 2005) being well established.
The student will join the prestigious President’s Scholarship Scheme and thus will not only be integrated into the School of Bioscience’s postgraduate community but also the CU-CNN postgraduate system.
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The award will cover tuition fees at the Home/EU fee rate and will provide a stipend at the UK Research Council rate (£13,590 for 2010/11).
Academic Criteria: Applicants must have a First Class Honours degree or a 2.1 plus a postgraduate Masters degree at Distinction level (or their equivalents) in a relevant subject.
Applicants whose first language is not English will be required to demonstrate proficiency in the English language (IELTS 6.5 or equivalent).
Residency: Open to all UK/EU students without further restrictions.
Application Deadline: 28th January 2011
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