The Singer Lab (www.msinger.faculty.wesleyan.edu) in the Biology Department at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut) is recruiting a Ph.D. student to participate in a collaborative project looking at effects of forest fragmentation on tri-trophic interactions at a landscape scale. The collaboration involves colleagues from the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at U. Connecticut: Dr. Robert Bagchi, Dr. David Wagner, and Dr. Christopher Elphick, and their lab groups. The broader project investigates bottom-up and top-down ecological and evolutionary factors hypothesized to cause the loss of dietary specialist, tree-feeding caterpillars from communities in fragmented forests in Connecticut.
The Ph.D. project in the Singer Lab (www.msinger.faculty.wesleyan.edu) will mechanistically test the hypothesis that the fitness costs incurred by dietary specialist caterpillars are more severe than those incurred by dietary generalist caterpillars on woody host plants occurring in fragmented forest stands. The project entails 3 years of research funding, with additional years guaranteed support by the Biology Department at Wesleyan (www.wesleyan.edu/bio/graduate/index.html). Applicants should have a strong interest in the evolutionary ecology of insect-plant interactions. Prior research experience at the undergraduate or Master's level is desirable. Individuals from underrepresented groups in the sciences are encouraged to apply. Applications will be processed through the Biology Department at Wesleyan (www.wesleyan.edu/bio/graduate/index.html), although prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Dr. Michael Singer ([email protected]) in advance.
