Each year, millions of coastal birds visit the Wadden Sea region to refuel on their migration route between winter and breeding habitats. Small sandy islands play an important role as roosting, staging and breeding habitat. The development and stability of these small islands is steered by positive interactions between vegetation growth and sediment transporting processes. In this project, you will investigate how birds impact the biogeomorphic feedbacks that determine island morphodynamics and habitat suitability for breeding and roosting birds through their faecal excrements. You will concentrate on the small islands in the Wadden Sea region (e.g., Griend, Richel, Zuiderduin, Rottums) and will investigate the relations between coastal bird populations, vegetation dynamics and island morphological development. Your work will consist of a combination of field surveys, remote sensing data, statistical models and manipulative lab and field experiments.
THE CANDIDATE
We are looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate with a strong interest in coastal ecology and biogeomorphology, with the ability to integrate statistical models on existing data (e.g., bird counts, vegetation productivity and coastal lidar) with designing and conducting empirical research (e.g,. surveys and manipulative experiments). You must hold a master degree (or equivalent) in ecology, biogeomorphology, earth sciences or a related field. A multidisciplinary interest, with emphasis on geomorphological and ecological interactions, is necessary. Additionally, we expect you to be able to work in a group, have an appetite for both fieldwork and computer analyses and to have a pro-active, inquisitive, enthusiastic, creative and self-reliant mindset. You must be proficient in communication in written and verbal English and already possess a good command of a programming language (R, Python or Matlab), or are willing to learn such a language. We highly encourage applicants from all members of our community and of diverse background, including LGBTIQ+ communities, to join us.
CONDITIONS
Employment of this position at Royal NIOZ is by NWO (The Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research). We offer a position for a period of 1 year (fulltime). At the end of this first year, the employment will be extended for a fixed-term of a maximum of 4 years, if the first year evaluation held with the employee is positive. The salary is compliant to the CAO-OI (Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Research Institutes), a pension scheme, a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary, a year-end bonus of 8,3%, flexible work arrangements and arrangements and 42 days of holiday leave (fulltime position).
You may expect attractive secondary employment conditions. We offer generous relocation expenses for employees coming from abroad and support with finding accommodation.
MORE INFORMATION
For additional information about this vacancy, please contact Valerie Reijers (Assistant professor Coastal Ecology UU) and Kees Camphuysen (senior scientist NIOZ). For additional information about the procedure, please contact Sigrid Moerbeek (senior HR advisor).
For more information about the Department of Physical Geography, at Utrecht University see here; for more information about the Department of Coastal Systems at NIOZ, see here.
Find more information about the UU-NIOZ projects here.
If you are interested in this position please visit our website www.workingatnioz.com and apply for this job by submitting a motivation letter with your CV and the names of three references.
For further information about the position, follow this link.