Just saw a posting about this on Twitter by Simon Creer and thought it might be of interest.
4 year NERC freshwater eDNA PDRA now recruiting!
Understanding the ecological relevance of eDNA in freshwater lotic ecosystems (NERC Highlight Topic funding)
We are looking for a dynamic researcher to fulfil a leading role in a new, collaborative and multidisciplinary team working at the leading edge of environmental DNA (eDNA) analyses in order to advance our knowledge of the ecological relevance of eDNA in freshwater systems. Molecular biodiversity identification is emerging as a high throughput and cost effective alternative to traditional approaches and in particular, the analysis of ‘free’ environmental DNA (eDNA) provides an opportunity to measure biodiversity in space and time at unprecedented scales.
Understanding how sources of eDNA relate to living biodiversity, land use and associated ecological function are focal aims of the project. The 4 year, £1.25M project led by Dr. Si Creer (http://mefgl.bangor.ac.uk/staff/si.php) is funded by the first round of NERC Highlight Topic funding (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/portfolio/strategic/topics/) and features collaborations with Cardiff University (Isabelle Durance; Steve Ormerod), the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Jack Cosby, Bridget Emmett) and the Birmingham Joint Centre for Environmental — Omics (JCEO — John Colbourne).
The project will utilise novel molecular ecological workflows, including genomic approaches to assess biodiversity, bioinformatics and ecological modelling working with a large team of collaborators and an international steering committee comprising leading representatives from the field of eDNA (including David Lodge, Mike Pfrender, Pierre Taberlet, Holly Bik, Peter Kille, Kristy Deiner and Xin Zhou), end-users and stakeholders.
A flyer for the proposal is available here, with full details and the application process available only via the on-line recruitment website (https://jobs.bangor.ac.uk/ reference BU01021), by the 6th December, 2015 with interviews scheduled for the first week in Jan 2016. Due to the funding nature of the call, the successful candidate will be expected to start as soon as possible in 2016.
Any questions, please contact Si Creer (s.creer@bangor.ac.uk; http://mefgl.bangor.ac.uk/staff/si.php; Twitter @spideycreer) in the first instance, copied to Mark De Bruyn (markus.debruyn@gmail.com) and Gary Carvalho (g.r.carvalho@bangor.ac.uk) for further information about this exciting eDNA opportunity!
Publication date: 9 November 2015