Researcher position in vertebrate palaeontology Full-time

Researcher Position In Vertebrate Palaeoontology

Are you interested in working with vertebrate palaeontology, with the support of competent and friendly colleagues in an international environment? Are you looking for an employer who invests in sustainable employeeship and offers safe, favourable working conditions? We welcome you to apply for a researcher position in vertebrate palaeontology at the Department of Organismal Biology at Uppsala University.

The Department of Organismal Biology teaches and explores the evolution, development and function on the organismal level. For more information see www.iob.uu.se. The Programme for Evolutionary and Developmental Biology studies the evolution and developmental biology of vertebrates, both separately and through interdisciplinary research, with the aim of understanding how the fundamental vertebrate body plan was assembled and developed over time. Our research particularly focuses on the deepest parts of the vertebrate evolutionary tree (from the origin of vertebrates to the transition from water to land) and on the development of terrestrial ecosystems during the Mesozoic era – the geological period when dinosaurs dominated the Earth.

The main duties will consist of developing and applying macroecological modelling to Triassic and Jurassic terrestrial ecosystems across Pangea to explore the evolution of food web stability and change across various parts of Pangea during the rise of dinosaurs. In your role as researcher, you will help in the co-supervision of PhD Students within a larger project on the evolution of early dinosaur ecosystems. The project is part of the ERC-funded project “Unravelling early dinosaur success through fossil digestive contents and trophic dynamics (DINO-DIGEST)”, awarded to Martin Qvarnström. You will work closely with the PI and other members of the group. Opportunities will also be provided to join fieldwork, travel to study museum collections, and present work at international conferences.

The first 30 million years of dinosaur evolution – from their origin to their dominance of terrestrial ecosystems – remain an evolutionary event about which we know remarkably little. Previous research has mainly focused on analysing dinosaur phylogeny, while the ecological dynamics that drove their success are largely unknown. This project aims to fill this knowledge gap by analysing a key series of terrestrial ecosystems spanning the Triassic and early Jurassic.

Long-term diversity trends in the Late Cretaceous and selective extinction of certain animal groups in the end-Cretaceous and end-Permian mass extinctions have recently been explored using modelling of long-term patterns in food webs and ecospace occupancy dynamics, leveraging recent advances in network theory and ecological niche partitioning, which are widely used in studies of modern ecological communities. This project aims to employ and further develop such ecological methods to investigate the detailed food web structures across various parts of Pangea. The models can be uniquely tested using direct fossil evidence of trophic interactions in northern Pangea, which the research team is developing largely based on bromalite data (fossils connected to food processing). The researcher will explore dinosaur food webs and changes in niche occupation over the TJT until the end of the Cretaceous. Such models will be developed primarily by the researcher in collaboration with the PI and other key collaborators. In addition, the researcher may undertake other relevant work on these early dinosaur ecosystems and support PhD projects.

You will supervise or directly perform all primary objectives of the project, including: (1) Further develop the project design in consultation with the PI; (2) planning, collecting and sorting of data; (3) interpreting results in relation to key research questions; and (4) writing and publishing scientific articles. Other fossil material will also be studied to create an integrated picture of ecosystem development and palaeoecological changes in Triassic ecosystems of NE Pangea. In addition, some fieldwork will be carried out to collect new data, and the researcher will also be involved in working on non-destructive computed tomography (CT) of some of the most important fossils.

You must have a PhD degree in Palaeontology or similar, or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree in Palaeontology or similar. The degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Priority will be given to applicants who have completed their degree no more than three years before the deadline for applications. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labour unions, etc.

The qualification requirements for this position are: experience in palaeoecological research and macroevolutionary modelling, full written and spoken fluency in English, and the ability to both carry out research independently and to integrate successfully into a team working on a large research project under the leadership of the PI.

Practical experience working with tomographic data, very good knowledge of the composition of Triassic ecosystems, and research on early dinosaur ecosystems are considered merits.

The employment is a permanent position. Scope of employment 100 %. Starting date as agreed. Placement: Uppsala.