Job Title: Postdoctoral position in large mammal ecology and evolution. Research focus on fundamental ecology and evolution using ungulates as model species (Sable Island horses, woodland caribou).
Location: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada; lab of P.D. McLoughlin http://mcloughlinlab.ca/lab/ Salary: Annual stipend of $45,000 CAD/year. Eligible Canadians will be expected to apply for an NSERC PDF in the October 2014 competition. A successful NSERC PDF candidate will receive a $25,000 top-up to their $40,000 NSERC PDF award. Renewal of post-doc is dependent on lab grant applications. Other: Travel and/or research allowance of up to $2,500 CAD per year (to be spent as the successful candidate wishes on conference travel and networking, or for any other personal research-related needs other than salary). Closing: Please contact me by Feb 25, 2014. Start date July 1, 2014, or earlier. Apply: This advertisement is firstly targeted at recent Canadian Ph.D. graduates who will be eligible to apply for an NSERC PDF in October 2014, although all potential Canadian and international candidates are encouraged to apply. Email me a CV and statement of research interests and career plan, and contact information for two references, and pdf copies of all authored papers. Email to [email protected]. Please write Population Ecologist as the subject line. Website: http://mcloughlinlab.ca/lab/. Description: You will join a growing lab with a focus on fundamental and applied animal (large mammal) ecology. We are leading a long-term, individual-based program of research into the ecology and evolution of the feral horses living on Sable Island, Nova Scotia; and in the next year we will be initiating a comprehensive study of the population dynamics and critical habitat of woodland caribou in northern Saskatchewan. We are looking to recruit a post- doc to answer fundamental questions of population ecology, behaviour, using the Sable Island horses as a model; however, the successful candidate will also be expected to contribute to theoretical questions and study design for our new project on woodland caribou (data collection since March 2013). A few notes on current data available for this post-doc. This summer will be the seventh year of whole-island data collection on Sable Island, which includes summer censusing and identification of all horses using digital photography and documentation of individual life histories (the project is modeled closely on the Cambridge red deer project on Rum). The Sable Island horses represent a unique model organism for a long-term, individual-based study as unlike other ungulates for which similar programs exist, the social system is much more like that of primates. Sample sizes are large, and data is currently available for 801 horses (including 559 individuals alive in September 2013), which is comparable to many other long-term studies of wild populations, including some that have been conducted over much longer periods of time. The data on hand are just now allowing us to answer interesting questions with satisfactory sample sizes and length of study. Our goal is to make this study stand-out from other programs over the next several years. Current students and post-docs are asking questions regarding individual-based dynamics, pedigree reconstruction, band dynamics and dispersal, behaviour and dominance, habitat selection, sex ratios and sexual selection, parasitology, and questions involving traits such as body size and colouration patterns, stress as it relates to band structure and dynamics from cortisol (from hair), patterns in vegetation and successional dynamics, and spatial heterogeneity in nitrogen isotopic signatures from vegetation samples and animal tissues as affected by seal and seabird transfer of marine-derived nutrients onto the island. Further analyses involving genetics (requires additional funding or collaboration; rooted hairs are in storage for most individuals) may allow for collaborative questions on genetics and evolution, including paternity and pedigree construction (we are also exploring options for analyses of ecological evolutionary genomics, as the whole genome of the horse is known). Trends in the above will likely be related to a gradient in habitat quality along the length of Sable Island from west to east associated with availability of preferred forage and access to fresh water (horse density drops by half from west to east, and population growth rate is heterogeneous along the gradient with subsequent effects on life histories and sex ratios). Population size on the island has increased by 45% (20082013), allowing for interesting questions on density-dependence, which is one of our labs pet research interests. Although no field work is required for this position, if desired a field trip to our research site(s) are possible. Further to research related to Sable Island, the successful candidate will be expected to assist in launching a large project on the population dynamics and critical habitat of woodland caribou in the boreal shield of Saskatchewan, in which we will have deployed 145 GPS collars on caribou and 36 collars on wolves by March 2014.
