Two postdoctoral research posts Project financed by the Academy of Finland during 2011-15: The struggle of herbivores and predators between finding food and eluding enemies
For two years with possible extension up to four years (starting in Oct to Nov 2011) at Dept. Biol., Univ. of Turku, Finland. Objectives: While animals in the wild cope with the conflict between finding food and eluding predators, interactive impacts of food supply and predators on demography of vertebrate populations have remained largely unstudied. Two two-factor experiments with mammals in North America showed that sole food supplementation (FS) and predator reduction (PR) result in a 2-to-3-fold increase, and both FS and PR resulted in a >10-fold increase in population densities. These studies suggest that food and predation may have interactive effects on reproductive success and population densities of vertebrate animals. This project will thus aim to solve the long-lasting controversy over whether animal populations are mainly limited by bottom-up (food) and/or top-down forces (predation). Details on the research environment, research projects and their productivity can be found in http://www.sci.utu.fi/biologia/en/ecology.html, http://users.utu.fi/ekorpi/, http://www.ncoetundra.utu.fi/ The postdoctoral researcher will take part in the planning and execution of the project, in analysing the existing long-term observational and experimental data sets on herbivores and predators, in writing papers, and in supervision of the Ph.D. and M.Sci. students, etc. The salary will be in accordance with the Finnish university norms, approx. 2950-3400 /mo, the exact level depending on competence. Queries and applications (CV, list of publications, a summary of research interests and motivation for this project) to Erkki Korpimäki, e-mail [email protected], fax +358-2-3336598. Deadline for applications is 31 Aug 2011. Address: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland.
