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PhD opportunity to work on Tasmanian devils

Employer
University of Tasmania
Location
University of Tasmania in Hobart, and field sites across Tasmania
Salary
Apply for PhD stipend
Closing date
Jul 8, 2019

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Sector
Academic / Research
Field
Conservation science
Discipline
Ecology
Job Level
Entry level
Salary Type
Stipend/Per Diem/Living Allowance
Employment Type
Volunteer

PhD project:  – Linking spatial movements and social contacts to understand transmission of Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease

I am seeking a highly motivated and qualified candidate for a 3-year PhD program of research commencing in 2019. The project is part of an international, transdisciplinary research program on evolution in the devil—DFTD host—pathogen system involving ecologists, epidemiologists and genomicists at the University of Tasmania, Griffith University, Washington State University and the University of Idaho, funded by a grant from the US National Institute of Health/National Science Foundation.

Tasmanian devils are threatened by transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), which has spread to almost their entire geographic range and has caused more than 90% population decline. A gap in knowledge for wildlife diseases globally, and DFTD specifically, is how the spatial connectivity between individuals at large landscape scales maps onto the social contacts between individuals at a local scale that lead to transmission. To understand how the disease spreads across the landscape requires integrating data on who-contacts and bites-who in the population with finescale information about how individuals move at landscape-scale throughout the year.

The project integrates spatial and social data to understand disease transmission and spatial spread. The field project involves placing collars on the adult population of devils at field sites with different histories of time since disease outbreak. The collars will record both the location of the animals and the identity of any other collared devils that come within close range. The field sites are in remote but beautiful locations in Tasmania. The statistical methods will involve constructing social networks and analysing movement data.

The scholarship is open to Australian and New Zealand (domestic) candidates and to International candidates.

Applicants should send a CV and Expression of Interest (one page maximum) to A/Prof Menna Jones (Menna.Jones@utas.edu.au) as soon as possible and before 30th May 2019.

Please find details and application process using the following link: http://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-phd-projects and then search under College of Sciences and Engineering, School of Natural Sciences and Zoology.

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