Dear All,
Please spread the information about this position at the Department of Ecology, SLU, Uppsala to potential applicants:
Associate Senior Lecturer in Ecology with special emphasis on forest protection against economically important insect pests.
http://www.slu.se/en/about-slu/jobs-vacancies/read-more/?eng=1&Pid=3080
We are interested in candidates with experience and interest in research on insect pests in forests with the aim to reduce their damage and achieve sustainable pest management strategies. A suitable research focus is interactions between insect pest and host tree, including both the insect's behaviour and the tree's defenses and resistance to damage. Other appropriate research areas are how to counteract the damage by applying knowledge about pest-insect population dynamics, the impact of natural enemies and by forest management measures. The Associate Senior Lecturer is expected to conduct high-quality research generating results that can be implemented in practical forestry.
The Associate Senior Lecturer is expected to mainly pursue research in a project that explores the possibilities of using variation in resistance of spruce and pine seedlings to reduce damage by pine weevils and bark beetles. To investigate variation in resistance among material from the Swedish forest breeding program, field trials will be established in cooperation with the Forest Research Institute of Sweden. The mechanisms that allow seedlings with a certain genotype to survive better than others should also be studied in the project. The project will provide an excellent basis for developing general research skills in the area of forest protection against economically important insect pests. There will also be room to perform and freely develop innovative research in this area. You should be able to teach at basic and advanced levels in the subjects that are central to your area of research, and also assist in tutoring at the advanced level and in the development of new courses and the supervision of doctoral students. The position provides a very good basis to build a future external financing.
The Department of Ecology conducts internationally strong empirical and theoretical research and education aimed towards sustainable forestry, agriculture and conservation. Our research on populations, communities and ecosystems form the basis of our research on the effects of land use and climate on animals, plants and soil. We aim at finding solutions that will contribute to improve greenhouse gas balance, conserve threatened species, support biodiversity and ecosystem services, sustainable wildlife management and pest management in forest and agricultural landscape as well as in urban areas. A research area of great applied interest is to find environmentally beneficial ways to counteract economically significant damage to forest production caused by insect pests.
Best regards,
Christer B
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Christer Björkman, professor
Department of Ecology
Swedish University of Agricultural University
PO Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
Phone: +46 18 671532
Fax: +46 18 672890
E-mail: christer.bjorkman@slu.se
www.slu.se/ecology/christerbjorkman
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