PhD in Tundra Biodiversity - remote sensing across scales from leaves to landscapes
We seek to recruit a Ph.D. student to take part in the newly funded Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory, a multi-institution effort that aims to integrate field surveys of vegetation, measurement of functional traits and spectral signatures of leaves, and hyperspectral images from aerial vehicles (drones and planes), to quantify plant biodiversity from the scale of leaves to the scale of Canada. For this specific project, the student will lead field efforts at one focal site, Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island on the Arctic Coast of the Yukon Territory, testing the influence of vegetation change and landscape-level disturbances on the plant biodiversity and structural signature of tundra landscapes. Opportunities also exist to integrate the collected data with long-term datasets of tundra ecology change from this and other sites with imagery collected from drones as a part of the High Latitude Drone Ecology Network (arcticdrones.org). This work will contribute towards the development of methods to quantify plant diversity and functional traits from aerial imagery to scale biodiversity monitoring across Canada’s ecosystems and across the tundra biome. The student will be supervised by Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh) and Mark Vellend (Université de Sherbrooke), with possible co-supervision by Étienne Laliberté (Institut de recherche en biologie végétale, Université de Montréal) or other project members. We seek candidates with expertise in plant ecology, experience doing field work in rugged terrain, strong quantitative skills, and excellent communication abilities. Please send inquiries including a statement of interest and academic CV to Isla Myers-Smith: [email protected]. For more information please see: teamshrub.com, mvellend.recherche.usherbrooke.ca
