PhD Position in Quantifying Land-Use Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

In the project BEATLE, we aim at improving the link between ecological and economic knowledge by quantifying the impact of conservation measures on biodiversity and integrating them into economic models (https://apo.uni-hohenheim.de/beatle). For work package 2 ‘Quantifying land-use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services’, we look for a highly motivated PhD student starting from September or October 2022.

In work package 2, the effect of management measures in agricultural landscapes, e.g. the establishment of flower strips to support pollinators, will be linked to changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services with help of meta-analysis and other quantitative synthesis tools.

Your tasks:

• Identifying and quantifying links between conservation measures, biodiversity and ecosystem services relevant for agricultural food production via systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses
• Collaborating with the 3 other PhD projects in BEATLE to develop anecological-economic model for the analysis of transformation scenarios

Your profile:

• Master or equivalent in biology, ecology, environmental science, or a related field
• Computational skills in R and QGIS (or ArcGIS)
• Good knowledge of the ecology in agricultural landscapes
• Interest in ecological statistics, especially meta-analysis and other synthesis methods
• High motivation to engage with topics related to biodiversity conservation and agricultural policies in Germany and Europe
• English (fluent) and German (elementary knowledge and willingness to learn German)
• You work independently; motivation to work in interdisciplinary and international teams
• Willingness to travel within Germany (Stuttgart-Freiburg) and internationally

BEATLE is a junior research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and led by Dr. Arndt Feuerbacher (University of Hohenheim) in collaboration with Dr. Anne Mupepele (University of Freiburg). The PhD candidate will be supervised by Dr. Anne Mupepele and located at the Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology at the University of Freiburg. The chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology has a research focus on pollinators in agricultural landscapes (www.nature.uni-freiburg.de).

Send your candidature including a motivation letter, cv, certificates and references.