MSCA-IF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Zoology

Professor José Manuel Tierno de Figueroa, from the Department of Zoology at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2018 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/09Qg).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. It serves more than 60000 students per year, including many foreign students, as UGR is the leader host institution in the Erasmus program. UGR, featuring 3650 professors and more than 2000 auxiliary personnel, offers a total of 75 degrees through its 112 departments and 28 centers.

UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding. UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://www.arwu.org/), and it is also well recognized for its web presence (http://www.4icu.org/top200/).

Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of H2020, both at partner and coordination. For the duration of the Seventh Framework Programme, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 17.97 million euros, and for H2020, until 2015, more than 25 projects with total funding of more than 6 million euros. Our more than 3,000 researchers are grouped into 365 research groups covering all scientific fields and disciplines.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

The research group “Animal Biology and Ecology of Lotic Aquatic Systems” (Biología y Ecología Animal de los Medios Acuáticos Lóticos) from the University of Granada was constituted in 1990. Currently the group consists of five doctors with recognized international prestige. Its main research lines are: 1. Taxonomical, biological and ecological aspects of aquatic insects (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, Coleoptera) and other aquatic animals; 2. Biogeography and phylogeography of aquatic insects; 3. Life history, reproductive and feeding strategies of aquatic insects; 4. Bio- assessment of the ecological status of water courses; 5. River ecology; and 6. High resolution microtomography. In the last five years (2013-2017), the research team members have published 113 publications, including international and national publications (mainly in JCR journals), books and chapters of book, and scientific videos; they have supervised 4 doctoral thesis; and participated in 6 research private and/or public funding projects and contracts of special relevance.

Web page: http://zoologia.ugr.es/pages/investigacion/rnm_102

Project description

We carry out studies at the community and ecosystem level in aspects such as stream food webs or the input and decomposition of organic matter in streams and rivers. We also focus, at a population level, on aspects of life strategies, trophic ecology and secondary production of stream benthic fauna. All these topics are carried out both in permanent and temporary (seasonal, intermittent, etc.) lotic systems. Thus, the fellow would incorporate to a research line we are involved in now in which we are trying to identify the main factors determining the trophic structure of macroinvertebrate communities inhabiting sources of permanent streams and reaches of the same streams where anthropogenic perturbations occur through the analysis of their food webs. The correct characterization of the macroinvertebrate communities in the rivers is therefore fundamental to deeply understand the dynamics within and around the community. Due to the presence of a number of taxa that, especially at a larval stage, are difficult to identify morphologically, the use of molecular methods, such as DNA barcoding, would represent an important tool to rapidly and accurately characterize the whole macroinvertebrate community. On the other hand, we are also starting a new research line in which we will try to determine the factors that control populations of two main predators in a permanent stream, their interspecific interactions between them, mainly competitive, and their role as predators on the whole macroinvertebrate community. We therefore intend to adopt an integrated approach using traditional taxonomy and DNA barcoding to increase the understanding of the ecological processes that take place in both permanent and temporary streams.

Research Area

• Life Sciences (LIFE)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor José Manuel Tierno de Figueroa (jmtdef@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)