Job vacancies
We need you
We are always looking for enthusiastic people to join our group. With fresh ideas and motivation you might be the Intern, Master student, PhD or Postgraduate Researcher that we were looking for.
PhD position Happy Chemical Cluster: Exploring serotonin as the missing link between pollution, climate, animal behaviour and human health
Application deadline 29th January 2020
We’re looking to recruit three PhD students to join our “Happy Chemical Cluster” and work with us on Animal Behaviour and/or Molecular Biology. These projects will focus on the role of serotonin – a chemical known to contribute to wellbeing and happiness – and often called the happy chemical, and of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). In fact, SSRI are some of the most frequently prescribed drugs for the treatment of depression but the role of serotonin is complex, associated with appetite, anxiety, temperature regulation, sexual activity and sleep.
Here at the University of Hull, we have the opportunity to examine the role of serotonin in various animal behaviours and better understand the molecular pathways involved, and the likely impacts of pollution of waterways with SSRI, using our superb aquarium systems and molecular laboratories.
You will join a thriving and supportive community of postgraduate students across the Departments of Biological & Marine Sciences and Biomedical Sciences, with regular lab meetings, journal clubs, Departmental seminars and annual postgraduate conferences. Depending on the PhD project, you will be supported with Home Office training for licensed procedures, animal tracking and behavioural analysis, animal husbandry, biochemical analyses, molecular biology methods, bioinformatics, ecotoxicology and pharmacology. Candidates with some experience already in any of these would be welcome.
PhD position (NERC DTP): Language of life under climate change-quantifying marine life’s tipping points in a changing world
Application deadline 6th January 2020
Environmental changes such as climate change and ocean acidification (OA) can alter ecosystem functioning and stability consequently impacting a species’ resilience to extinction events. Animals perceive their environment through their sensory systems utilising vision and chemoreception to control vital behaviours including predator-prey interactions, settlement, and reproduction. Although olfactory disruption is widely acknowledged as a major threat to marine life the ecological consequences of disrupting such functional biological traits have not been considered over multiple generations. If these important ecological functions are severely impacted across one or more generations, a tipping point is reached with severe consequences for an individual, a species and the marine ecosystem.
The project will use multi-generational studies on marine model species to quantify functional traits related to fitness (behaviour, physiology, reproduction) in changed aquatic environments, and determine trait expression in surviving communities to enable us to determine tipping points where changes to ‘effect traits’ (animal behaviour /physiology) lead to a point when a species’ abilities to thrive and persist in the face of environmental change is altered, Dr. Hardege’s Chemical Ecology group and Dr. Wollenberg Valero’s MolStressH2O research cluster will provide a vibrant research atmosphere for the successful candidate with this PhD project is linked to and supported by a new NERC grant starting in 2020 .
The PhD student will focus on feeding behaviour (response to food odour), anti-predator responses (burrowing/ predator escape responses), respiration as measure of physiological effects, and reproductive capacity (quantity/quality of gametes fertilization rates) ‘effect traits’ and record changes to traits over multiple generations (10+). Ecosystem consequences of long-term environmental forcing (temperature/ocean acidification: ambient + 4°C/[CO2] 700ppm) on the ‘response traits’ so the species’ abilities to thrive in a habitat and to persist (endpoints) will be recorded using marine model species, Platynereis dumerilii and Hediste diversicolor.
PhD position (NERC DTP): Variability and permanence of functional traits to determine environmental tipping points
Application deadline 6th January 2020
Species diversity has a disproportionate influence on ecosystem functioning and stability and as such, resilience to extinction events. The extent to which variation in biological traits changes or persists following environmental forcing in scenarios linked to current climate change, has not been considered over multiple generations yet. If important ecological functions are impacted across one or more generations, eventually a tipping point is reached with severe consequences for the marine ecosystem.
This PhD project is linked to and supported by a new NERC grant starting in 2020 to the Universities of Hull and Southampton and CEFAS. It will use multi-generational studies on marine model species to quantify functional traits related to fitness in changed aquatic environments, and determine how functions performed by traits of surviving communities influence ecosystem functioning. The project will enable us to determine tipping points where changes to ‘effect traits’ (here animal behaviour /physiology) lead to a point when a species’ abilities to colonize or thrive in a habitat and to persist in the face of environmental change is altered, and will enable us to understand whether these changes are transient or permanent. Dr. Wollenberg Valero’s MolStressH2O research cluster and Dr. Hardege’s Chemical Ecology group will provide a vibrant research atmosphere for the successful candidate, and they will collaborate closely with the project partners in Southampton.