Research Associate for the Project “Rapid Adaptive Change – Subproject: Rapid adaptive change in insect-spider communities” § 28 Subsection 3 HmbHG

Duties primarily include research. Research associates may also pursue independent research and further academic qualifications. They may also pursue doctoral studies outside of working duties.

Understanding the responses of organisms to environmental change is critical to managing and preserving biodiversity, especially in the light of global climate change. The aim of the project is to elucidate various mechanisms of rapid adaptive changes exemplarily in six subprojects using various biological collections of the University Hamburg and the Leibnitz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change. Our approach is taxonomically and functionally broad, spanning genomic, molecular, morphological, physiological and community level analysis in animals, plants and fungi. We will apply experimental evolution, phylogenomics, network analyses as well as utilize the rich biological collections that have been capturing biodiversity over the past 200 years. This PhD project is part of a research consortium that consists of six subprojects in total. Central to all projects is a data science approach to handle and analyze large and complex data. We search for a skilled and motivated research associate for the following subproject:

Rapid adaptive change in insect-spider communities – community structure and interactions

The project aims to understand how arthropod communities are changing under the pressure of climate change. In particular, you will leverage biological collections (from museums and biodiversity databases) comparing past and present communities, combined with space-for-time comparisons between distinct regions of Germany, to evaluate how global change drives changes in the trait composition on the level of communities. You will focus on five taxa with relatively good data availability: Aculeata, Araneae, Lepidoptera, Odonata and Orthoptera. Measurement of traits will be developed in close interaction with other subprojects, in particular with the subproject “Rapid adaptive change in species specific traits of insect-spider communities” evaluating intraspecific trait changes of selected species in the focal arthropod taxa. Eventually you will identify functions and interactions that are particularly at risk and assess to what extent arrival of new species into changing communities can compensate for the loss of species most sensitive to climate change.