[Coral-List] Masters-level Graduate Research Assistantship in Fish Ecology (UVI)-St. Thomas, USVI

[Sylvia Vitazkova]

Graduate Research Assistantship in Fish Ecology

sponsored by

NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring & Assessment, University of the
Virgin Islands' Center for Marine and Environmental Studies, and the
USGS State Partnership Program

 

Project Title: Identifying ontogenetic movements and habitat use of
juvenile Nassau grouper and other fishes inside and outside marine
protected areas in the USVI.

 

Project start date/ duration: May 2008/ 2 years

 

Project location: St. John and St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands

 

Stipend: summer (full-time 3 month $6,000), academic year (half-time 9
months $9,000)

 

Project Summary: We are seeking a motivated graduate student to work
with UVI and NOAA scientists on a joint acoustic telemetry project to
track several commercially exploited fish species, including Nassau
grouper, through their daily home range and across ontogenetic habitat
shifts.  The project will also quantify growth and mortality rates for
selected species, both inside and outside marine protected areas (MPAs).
These data will provide important information on fine-scale space-use
patterns, behavioral responses to seascape structure, and the efficacy
of MPAs for individual species.

The graduate student will conduct repeated scuba and snorkel fish
surveys, help capture, tag and release a variety of fish, conduct manual
fish tracking from a small boat, and assist in routine maintenance, data
acquisition and analyses of movement data.  The graduate student will
also contribute to analyses of coral reef monitoring data collected by
NOAA, UVI and territorial partners.

 

Basic Requirements: The successful applicant will have a BS degree in
Biology or related field, be comfortable with basic statistical
analyses, be a certified SCUBA diver, be able to operate a small boat,
and be willing to work for long hours in the field under a variety of
weather and sea conditions. 

 

Application procedure: All applicants will need to write a letter of
interest, submit a current CV and be accepted into the University of the
Virgin Islands Master's of Marine and Environmental Science (MMES)
degree program. MMES application package can be found at
http://mmes.uvi.edu/ or contact Dr. Sylvia Vitazkova (svitazk at uvi.edu,
tel: 340-693-1427). The application deadline is March 3, 2008. For more
information on the research program contact Dr. Rick Nemeth
(rnemeth at uvi.edu, tel: 340-693-1381) or Dr. Simon Pittman
(Simon.Pittman at noaa.gov, tel: 340-693-1179).