The Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel invites applications for two PhD positions in the research group Geoecology. Where have warm-adapted ecosystems and organisms survived unfavorable conditions in the past? What were the environments that characterized such refugial areas during the Quaternary Ice Ages? How and with which dynamics did warm-adapted organisms expand from these areas under warming climate after the ice ages? These are central questions for both Biogeography and Quaternary Palaeoecology, and the answers provide the basis for predictions of ecosystem and species response to future climatic change.

We are looking for PhD candidates that will work towards resolving these research questions in the interdisciplinary SNF research project ECO-ICE. The project will collect, analyse and interpret new lake sediment records from key refugial localities covering the Last Glacial Maximum. This will allow a revised assessment of the survival of temperate tree populations in Europe and their response to major climatic variations during and after the last ice age. The successful candidates will develop high-resolution palaeoecological records of aquatic invertebrate assemblage change, particularly focusing on the remains of chironomid (non-biting midge) larvae. Based on these sensitive temperature indicators, they will develop quantitative reconstructions of glacial temperatures using multivariate statistical methods, results that will be compared with other, independent temperature reconstructions, high-resolution palaeobotanical records, and vegetation modelling scenarios developed by project partners. This research will be essential for developing new palaeoclimate scenarios for ice age Europe, for understanding ice age ecosystems, and for reassessing the ice age refugia and postglacial expansion of temperate trees in Europe.

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