The Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) and the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) have organised a comprehensive, fully-funded workshop on fish barcoding and functional ecology. The workshop is focused on the practical application of methods.
Core of the workshop will be a two-week in person training at the modern laboratory of KMFRI in Mombasa including a 2-day symposium for networking and to meet invited keynote speakers
- Dr. Monica Mwale, South African National Biodiversity Institute
- Prof. Sophie von der Heyden, University of Stellenbosch, SA
- Dr. Cynthia A. Adinortey, University of Cape Coast, Ghana
Time is provided for participants to share details about their projects.
I Workshop Contents
Online activities take place in the first and last week of the workshop and focus on asynchronous learning such as reading literature, video tutorials/talks, questionnaires and chat functions via the ZMT Academy e-learning platform. These tasks which can be scheduled individually are accompanied by video meetings mostly arranged between 1pm and 5pm (East African time EAT, equals 11:00 – 15:00 CET). The lecturers are Dr. Sonia Bejarano (ZMT), Dr. Levy Otwoma (KMFRI), Prof. Oscar Puebla (ZMT) und Dr. Achim Meyer (ZMT).
Week 1: The first week is filled with preparatory online activities to adjust background knowledge and lay the theoretical foundation.
Week 2 and 3: The physical presence part is divided into i) hands-on fish barcoding activities in the wet-lab such as tissue fixation, DNA extraction, PCR, qPCR, evaluate gel pictures, and ii) functional ecology training such as measuring morphological traits, functional ecology of cryptobenthic reef fish, ordering a species pool in a functional space. On site work follows the ZMT hygiene concept, but the corona situation for March is difficult to predict. In case of flight closures or obligatory quarantine duties we will either postpone or transfer to a hybrid event depending on the number of affected participants.
Week 4: The last week is working remotely with the generated data such as sequence assembly, database usage and phylogenetic trees, and to finally combine the biodiversity data by computing and plotting functional diversity indices.
II Who is eligible to apply?
This workshop is aimed at early career researchers (MSc or PhD) working in the field of marine fish biodiversity, coral reef ecology or functional ecology. We are looking for participants working in academic institutions, governments, research institutes, universities or NGOs and resident in Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, female researchers are encouraged to apply. A moderate proficiency in wet-lab skills such as pipetting is desired, however the course will cover principles of safe and clean lab work. In addition to a keen interest in molecular laboratory work, prior statistical knowledge is helpful as well as demonstrable experience with R programming.
III Selection Criteria
Selection will be done by the organisers at ZMT and KMFRI to create a diverse course of 19 participants representing different countries to enable networking as well as mutual learning. It will consider prior knowledge, field of work, future project plans and your motivation. If you hold a traditionally underrepresented identity, please include mention somewhere in your application.
Please submit your application until 7 January 2022 via this form only.
The workshop is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and includes two weeks (14/3/2022 – 25/3/2022) in-person training at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) in Mombasa, Kenya
For further information on the position, visit this website.