1 year Postdoc in modelling marine mammals energetics and population dynamics of Swedish grey seals and harbour seals.
Marine mammals contribute critically to the resilience of marine ecosystems and provide ecosystem services through top-down food-web interactions. The grey seal populations in the Baltic Sea, and the harbour seal at the Swedish west coast, are below historical abundances, despite this, recent and severe declines have been documented in body condition, possibly due to declining nutritive value or abundance of their fish prey. The current project sets out to investigate this phenomenon.
The current project will further develop a new so called ''dynamic bioenergetic model'' for grey seals to quantify the link between fish populations and seal populations. The model uses energy as a common currency and relates fat content of fish to energetic expenditure of seals and estimate how variation in food is reflected in body growth, fertility and survival. The outcome of the project will contribute to the applied conservation of the seals. Depending on the candidate's profile and interests it is, in addition to modelling, also possible to participate in fieldwork, labwork or image analysis of drone photos from seal colonies or to make a targeted study on seal shape and hydrodynamics.
The candidate is expected to relocate to Gothenburg, or alternatively Kristineberg Marine Station and will be affiliated to Gothenburg University. The grant is in the format of a monthly stipend from Carl Tryggers Foundation, for 12 months and is free from taxes and distributed directly to the candidate. The candidate will be part of a team with marine mammal ecologist Karin Harding at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Gothenburg University and ecological modelling experts Dr. Willian Silva, Lund University and Dr. Jean-Pierre Desforges, Montreal University, Canada. We also collaborate with scientists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Candidates shall hold a PhD in a relevant field, biology, physics, statistics or mathematical statistics etc. Please email your application including a 1-2 page application letter and your CV to karin.harding@bioenv.gu.se Application will be evaluated continuously, starting today until the position is filled, preferably during the spring 2021. When the position is filled the candidate will be presented on the Swedish seal team home page (link below).
Useful Links:
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences Gothenburg: https://www.gu.se/biologi-miljovetenskap
https://www.gu.se/en/kristineberg Marine Research Station
Homepage with links to the members of the Swedish seal team: https://sites.google.com/view/sealpopulationdynamics/home
The story of the Baltic grey seals and the outline of the DEB model that will be a good starting point for the current project:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020321000?via%3Dihub
A bit about the Swedish harbour seal and its future challenges. Also the outline of a population model that can be further extended:
