| Job Title: | OCE Postdoctoral Fellow - Macroecological modelling of biodiversity resilience | | Job Number: | 4009759 (Ref.#. ACT00511) | | Date Posted: | 08/16/2011 | | Application Deadline: | 12/15/2011 | |
| Job Description • Canberra, ACT Australia
• $75K - $82K plus up to 15.4% superannuation
• Make a difference to biodiversity conservation!
The position
“Planning for resilience” is now a catch cry of many whole-landscape conservation programs and initiatives. Dr Simon Ferrier and his research team are pioneering development of new macroecological, or “top-down”, modelling approaches to assessing the capacity of landscapes to retain biological diversity in the face of global change, working within a continuous multi-dimensional geographical, temporal and environmental space. While these new approaches contrast strongly with the prevailing species-level, or “bottom-up”, modelling paradigm being pursued by most other workers in this field, their development raises an issue common to all efforts to model future impacts of global change on biodiversity: how can the predictive ability of such models be tested, given that the combined effects of habitat configuration and climate change on retention of biological diversity within real landscapes may not be realised for many decades?
As the successful Postdoctoral Fellow you will approach this problem from a fresh perspective � by looking to the past, rather than the future for evidence to evaluate and refine macroecological modelling of biodiversity resilience.
Specifically you will:
• Develop a technique for modelling the relative level of biological diversity expected to be retained in landscapes subjected to comparable levels of past climate fluctuation, but exhibiting markedly different configurations of habitat in a jointly continuous environmental-geographical space.
• Seek and use suitable environmental and biological datasets to evaluate the predictive performance of this technique, and to further refine the technique.
• Explore implications for the application of this, and related, macroecological modelling approaches to conservation assessment and planning, and implications for future policy development.
Tenure: 3 year term
To be successful you will have:
• PhD in a relevant field (e.g. ecology, biodiversity science)
• Strong skills in quantitative, spatially-explicit ecological and/or biodiversity modelling
• Ability to pursue novel solutions to complex problems
• Ability to show initiative, and work with limited supervision
• Strong oral and written communication skills
About CSIRO: Australia is founding its future on science and innovation. Its national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is a powerhouse of ideas, technologies and skills for building prosperity, growth, health and sustainability. It serves governments, industries, business and communities. http://www.csiro.au.
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences is a globally significant centre for sustainability science that brings together ecologists, social scientists, agricultural scientists, environmental biotechnologists, systems experts and urban scientists. The Division applies this multidisciplinary science to help ensure the sustainability of Australia’s agricultural and forestry systems, built environments, biodiversity, and rural and urban communities and industries.
http://www.csiro.au/science/Environment.html
Find out more! For further information and instructions on how to lodge your application, please visit our website at http://csiro.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm, choose "Job Search" and insert Reference Number ACT00511 where indicated.
Applications close 15 September 2011.
| | | | | | | Contact: | Dr Simon Ferrier
Ecosystem Sciences
CSIRO
Clunies Ross Street
Acton
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601
Australia
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