You will work on projects investigating plastic responses to climatic challenges and the evolutionary constraints that limit adaptation to extreme climatic conditions. We address these questions using populations and species sampled along elevational gradients, providing a powerful framework for identifying the causes of species' range limits and understanding constraints on the evolution of thermal niches.
One available dataset comes from a heat–drought experiment, which enables detailed investigation of the shape of plastic responses along continuous environmental gradients, as well as interactions between climatic factors. A second dataset focuses on the same species and allows you to estimate multivariate selection and predict selection responses across elevational gradients. Together, these datasets offer opportunities to connect environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity, selection, and evolutionary responses across climatic gradients.
The fellowship is for applicants who have done a PhD or at least one postdoc in Quantitative Genetics, Phenotypic Plasticity, and/or the Estimation of Selection.
The initial appointment is for one year. The University of Basel has generous resources for genomic analysis (scientific high- performance computing, data management, training and support). Furthermore, our Department of Environmental Sciences offers a stimulating environment, including a rich spectrum of research activities in life sciences (ecological genomics, population genomics, evolutionary biology, plant ecology, physiology and molecular and cell biology). Finally, Basel is a mid-sized Swiss city, well connected and offering a broad range of cultural and recreational activities.
