Category: job opportunities

Deadline: May 9, 2025

The NTNU University Museum is seeking a highly qualified, ambitious, and motivated PhD candidate for a project focusing on genomics of Arctic alien plants. A warming climate, changes in soil properties, and rising human activity in the Arctic increase the probability of introduction and establishment of alien plant species. In high-Arctic Svalbard and other Arctic regions, the wintercress (Barbarea vulgaris) is an established alien species. Hypotheses for its success include multiple introductions from different genetic sources, enemy release advantage related to plant defense compounds, and shifts in adaptive traits.

The PhD project will develop genomic datasets, making use of field collections and herbarium resources, and have the possibility to develop experimental evidence to examine links between the genomic basis of successful establishment and potential invasiveness in the high-Arctic. The wintercress will be a primary focus of the project, but complementary research on parallel systems may be developed. The project will add an important evolutionary component to ongoing interdisciplinary research on Arctic greening.

The successful candidate will be employed at the NTNU University Museum’s Department of Natural History. The NTNU University Museum is the natural and cultural history museum of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The Department of Natural History conducts research in systematics and taxonomy, evolutionary genomics, as well as in phylogeography, population genetics, and ecology with an emphasis on conservation biology. Your immediate leader will be the Head of Department.

The team of supervisors will consist of Ass. Prof. Kristine Bakke Westergaard (main supervisor), as well as co-supervisors Prof. Mike Martin and Dr. Simone Fior (ETH Zürich, Switzerland). The candidate will use the NTNU University Museum’s herbarium, genomics laboratory facilities and computational resources, and the work will be closely associated with a project on Arctic greening based at ETH Zürich. The work will also be part of the Nordic Borealization Network  that seeks to understand the processes, drivers, and consequences of changes in the species composition of tundra ecosystems.

More details can be found here: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/278168/phd-candidate-in-arctic-alien-plant-genomics

The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) is looking to strengthen the terrestrial ecology group in Tromsø and is therefore seeking a skilled and dedicated researcher to fill a permanent position.

Core responsibilities include acquisition of new projects, project development, proposal writing, as well as implementation and reporting of research projects. Publishing scientific papers, and development of research projects at national and international levels are also important tasks. Participation in fieldwork is expected. 

Find out more about this exciting opportunity here.

Application deadline: April 25, 2025

Deadline: February 15, 2025

One postdoc will lead ITEX phenology syntheses including the integration of phenocam and below-ground data as a part of the Canada Excellence Research Chair Project on the global change ecology of northern ecosystems. The other postdoc will join the European Research Council Resilience project to look at spatial patterning in tundra ecosystems and how they might influence resilience in the face of global change.

You can read more about our research on our website: https://teamshrub.com/

There will be opportunities for fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic and potentially elsewhere as a part of both of these positions. The two postdocs will join the teams for these two projects based at the University of British Columbia and will have the opportunity to work with collaborators in North America and Europe and across the ITEX network. These postdocs will join current UBC postdoc Jeremy Borderieux who is leading new data syntheses with the ITEX plant composition data focusing on community assembly and spatial patterning as a part of the Resilience Project and the recruited Tundra Time postdoc at the University of Edinburgh (see below).

You can check out the positions and apply at the following links:

Postdoctoral Position: Plant phenology change over time across spatial scales

Postdoctoral Position: Spatial patterning and ecological resilience across the tundra biome

If you are interested in the Tundra Time postdoc at UEdinburgh, you can find that job advertised here.