Postdoc Position: Ecosystem Size Spectra Analysis

Are you eager to investigate how the impact of environmental stressors on ecosystems is related to the size of organisms and communities? Then join the ERC Advanced Grant project ’The Power of Size’ to find out, make a difference and boost your academic career!

The overall aim of ’The Power of Size’ is to establish relationships describing the emission, fate and effects of pollutants as a function of size. We intend to derive overarching scaling principles that apply across multiple disciplines, including hydrology, socioeconomics, toxicology and ecology.

To achieve thisgoal, you will collect data from databases, reviews,article sand reports. You will then derive and compare statistical and mechanistic relationships. As the lead author, you will publish your results in scientific journals and present your main findings at international conferences.

This vacancy involves Task 3.1 of ‘The Power of Size’ project, which is aimed at deriving theoretical and empirical scaling relationships linking species richness, trophic level productivity and community biomass to size spectra under stress. Merging existing and new relationships on specific indicators for these quantities, you will obtain a set of equations that describe ecosystem structure and functioning as a function of size and other relevant properties.

You will test the theoretical framework developed on empirical data currently collected independently in the project. Examples of the approach can be found in Ecological Modelling
205: 196-208 and Ecological Indicators
79: 114-121. You will be part of the WP3 team consisting of Prof. Jan Hendriks, Dr Wilco Verberk, Dr Aafke Schipper, and one PhD candidate, and also collaborate with the PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers of WP1 and WP2.

Your work will be theory- and data-driven, contributing to both fundamental research and regulatory applications.

Given the empirical background of our research group, you willadd essential skills to the team.

On the one hand, you will help improve the understanding of the dominant role size plays in system functioning. On the other hand, the relationships you develop will support urgent risk assessment for over 1,000 substances, across more than 1,000 species (including humans) and 1,000 sites worldwide.

To further improve your research and assessment skills as a postdoctoral researcher, you may attend courses offered by the Graduate School of the Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Science. You will supervise students andassistin teaching courses at the BSc/MSc level, which may take up to 10% of your working time (usually less).

What I value most is the freedom to explore ideas together Félix P. Leiva, Dr Postdoc - The Power of Size

• You hold a PhD degree in ecology, environmental science or another field related to the topic.
• You have experience in systematic data collection, statistical analysis with appropriate software, and, in particular, describing complex systems by simple equations.
• You have a good command of spoken and written English at the C1 level.
• You like collaborating with other people in a cross-disciplinary setting.

• We will give you a temporary employment contract of one year with the prospect of an extension for 2 years (1,0 FTE) or 2.75 years/33 months (0,8 FTE).
• Your salary within salary scale 10 depends on your previous education and number of years of (relevant) work experience. The amounts in the scale are based on a 38-hour working week.
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus.
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20.

Work and science require good employment practices. Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions reflect this. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself. For example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a…