[Coral-List] postdoctoral fellowship announcement

[Ewann Berntson]

Announcement:

NRC Research Postdoctoral Fellowship available with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, WA:  Molecular Genetic Tools Applied to Deep Sea Coral and Sponges.   

http://nrc58.nas.edu/RAPLab10/Opportunity/Opportunity.aspx?LabCode=26&ROPCD=260339&RONum=B7118

Description:  Deep-sea corals and sponges are often components of trawling bycatch and their brittle skeletons and slow growth make their populations particularly vulnerable and slow to recover from such impacts. An understanding of the population structure of deep-sea corals and sponges will be critical to ascertaining the effects of habitat loss and genetic connections between distant populations. Much less is known about deep-sea species compared to their tropical, reef-building counterparts, so a key first step in our evaluation of the diversity present in deep-sea coral and sponge assemblages is to develop a genetic method of species identification that can augment morphological data. For the species for which we have sufficient collections of individuals, we will also develop nuclear genetic markers to measure population dynamics and gene flow (microsatellites, SNPs).



Potential applicants please note, the Research Opportunity number is 26.03.39.B7118, and is through the Research Associateship Program Fellowships Office.  The web site with application information is http://sites.nationalacademies.org/pga/rap/


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Ewann Berntson, PhD
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
7305 Beach Dr. E
Port Orchard, WA 98366
(360) 871-8333
ewann.berntson at noaa.gov