Applications are invited from talented young candidates for a PhD scholarship in effects to plant ecosystems from climate change.
The PhD will be enrolled at Ecosystems programme, Biosystems Division at Risø DTU. The Ecosystems programme work on effects of climate change to ecosystems, ecosystems feedback, adaptation and mitigation as well as ecosystem modeling in relation to climate change. The project will be carried out within the highly interdisciplinary and international research environment in the division. The project will employ some of the advanced experimental facilities the division has for conducting studies of climate change effects on ecosystems and biological processes, including advanced phytotron, controlled environments, field scale experiments and laboratories. The scholarship is carried out in close collaboration with the Nordic NordForsk initiative within the project ‘Sustainable primary production in a changing climate.
The project
The PhD project is related to effects of climate change on plant production, quality and sustainability. Climate change will change plant ecosystems and affect conditions for plant growth, and in that way affect not only yield and composition of crop biomass, but also change the ecosystem demands for nutrients, pesticides and water. The project will explore how future climate change scenarios will affect plant production and fungal disease severity in selected model crops; the results will be used by collaborators for modeling the sustainability of the future crop production. Part of the PhD will be devoted to study plant adaptation and acclimation to fast abiotic and biotic stress by the use of molecular tools for gene expression profiling and physiological measurements.
The PhD project will focus on understanding of key processes in plants under abiotic and biotic stress in multifactor stress scenarios e.g. with elevated CO2, ozone, temperature, limited water and foliar diseases. Plant population responses and feedback to climate change through genetic composition or gene expression will be explored in experiments with spontaneous and deliberate plant selection over a number of generations. The experiment will be carried out in Risø DTU’s advanced experimental facilities and include extreme events as part of the climate manipulation.
Qualifications
Candidates should have (or obtain) a master’s degree in molecular plant biology, plant physiology or plant breeding, or similar competences. A candidate with experience in molecular methods and plant population genetic analysis will be preferred.
Approval and Enrollment
The scholarship for the PhD degree is subject to academic approval, and the candidate will be enrolled in one of the general degree programmes at DTU. For information about the general requirements for enrollment and the general planning of the scholarship studies, please see the DTU PhD Guide.
Salary and appointment terms
The salary and appointments terms are consistent with the current rules for PhD degree students. The scholarship is for 3 years. Main supervisor is Senior Researcher Rikke Bagger Jørgensen (Risø DTU) and co-supervisors are Professor Pirjo Peltonen-Sainio (MTT, Finland), Senior Researcher Teis Mikkelsen (Risø DTU) and Associate Professor Michael Lyngkjær (KU Life).
Further information
Further information may be obtained from Senior Researcher Rikke Bagger Jørgensen, + 45 21331109, rijq@risoe.dtu.dk, or Senior Researcher Teis Mikkelsen, + 45 46774162, temi@risoe.dtu.dk.
Applications
We must have your online application by 27 October 2010. Please open the link "apply for this job online", fill in the application form and attach the following documents;
a) A letter motivating the application (cover letter). As part of the application we also welcome suggestions to which ‘in detail studies’ could be part of the PhD project
b) Curriculum vitae
c) Grade transcripts and BSc/MSc diploma
d) Conversion of grade averages to Danish grades (see guidelines and excel spreadsheet for the conversion here).
Candidates may apply prior to obtaining their master's degree, but cannot begin before having received it.
All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, race, religion or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.
