Hours of work: Full time
Contract Type: Fixed Term (FTA) until March 2025
Salary: £36,338 – £39,043 per annum (pro rata), depending on skills and experience
Location: Kew Gardens, Richmond
Closing Date: 28/04/2024
An exciting opportunity for a Quantitative Ecologist with experience in community ecology and modelling to join Kew’s expanding mycorrhizal research team. This position will involve databasing, managing, processing and analysing large UK fungal and plant datasets, including mycorrhizal colonisation and DNA sequence data, and incorporating georeferencing and environmental metadata. You will join the research group of Dr Laura M. Suz, Dr Jill Kowal and Prof Martin Bidartondo at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an international centre of excellence in biodiversity conservation and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in London.
About You
This post will be a part of the UK terrestrial Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (tNCEA) programme. The quantitative ecologist will explore and synthesize data to inform science, stakeholders and the public as part of implementing mycorrhizal research within soil monitoring across England. At Kew, we are generating novel baseline data on mycorrhizal distributions across habitats in England to understand and link below and aboveground ecosystem functioning across land uses, soil and vegetation types, considering biodiversity and carbon. This includes the use of artificial intelligence to accelerate data gathering. This post will provide a first opportunity to study the role of mycorrhizas in carbon and nutrient stocks and cycling across the country, thus contributing a key, but so far neglected, variable and source of indicators for environmental assessment and monitoring.
We are looking for a highly motivated individual with an interest in data analysis for environmental science.
Required:
- PhD, or research-focussed first-class Masters degree, or equivalent ecological data analysis experience in relevant research field (e.g. macroecology, computational methods in ecology, ecological modelling, biodiversity, environmental sciences, biostatistics, environmental intelligence, climate change).
- Evidence of significant professional experience, detailed knowledge of the literature in biostatistics and mathematical modelling applied to biodiversity data.
- Demonstrable analytical experience with species distribution and/or environmental data using specialised statistical or quantitative analytical software and coding languages (e.g. R, Python, GIS).
- Experience contributing to or leading peer-reviewed scientific articles and/or scientific reports.
About RBG Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) is a leading plant science institute, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and major visitor attraction. Our mission is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well-being of people and the future of all life on Earth.
We are working to end the unprecedented extinction crisis and to help create a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably. We will achieve these goals by drawing on our leading scientific research, unrivalled collections of plants and fungi, global network of partners, inspirational gardens at Kew and Wakehurst, and our 260 years of history.
Join the journey as protectors of the world’s plants and fungi.
The salary will be £36,338 – £39,043 per annum (pro rata), depending on skills and experience.
Fantastic benefits package includes opportunities for continuous learning, a generous annual leave entitlement, flexible working to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance, an Employee Assistance Programme and other wellbeing support such as cycle to work scheme and discounted gym membership. We also offer a competitive pension, an employee discount scheme and free entry into a wide range of national museums and galleries, as well as access to our own beautiful gardens at Kew and Wakehurst.
If you are interested in this position, please submit your application through the online portal, by clicking “Apply for this job”.
We are dedicated to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We are committed to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the post.
No agencies please.
For further information on this opportunity follow this link.