[Coral-List] postdoc fellowship and TIGP studentship-Understanding the behavior and response in corals in the era of changing climate: integrative approaches from ecology to genomics

[Allen Chen]

Dear Coral-Liters,

We have received a 3-year Thematic Grant (2022-2024) from Academia Sinica, Taiwan to conduct a research project, entitled "Understanding the behavior and response in corals in the era of changing climate: integrative approaches from ecology to genomics”. 

In this project, using two coral species collected from the outlet of a nuclear power plant (summer SST max. 3-6C higher than the ambient reefs) and a controlled sites, we we plan to examine the adaptive and/or acclimative capacity of the corals in Taiwan by trying to solve following problems:
1. How corals deal with repeated seawater temperature anomalies over spatial (stable and variable site in terms of seawater temperature perturbations) and temporal (on a scale of months to years) scales. Does ecological memory work on a short-time scales?
2. Are corals subjected to repeated thermal stress over a period of time (weeks to months) and with and without Symbiodiniaceae have same or similar response?
3. What molecular responses contribute to the mechanisms of adaptive and/or acclimative capacities in symbiotic and aposymbiotic corals?
4. How different are the coral associated beneficial bacterial communities in different coral species (symbiotic and aposymbiotic) at a spatial and temporal scales?

A postdoc fellowship is immediately available starting from January 1, 2022 with a 12-month contract plus 1.5 month year-end bonus. 

Our team is composed of researchers from Biodiversity Research Centre, Academia Sinica, and several universities based in Taiwan. So, the postdoc is expected to work collaboratively with PIs and other team members for this project.

In addition, we are recruiting several postgraduate students to join this project. The applicant with a Msc degree on marine-related major are encourage to apply and to develop their PhD theses based on the similar notions of this project. For those who are interested in applying PhD admission, please visit Taiwan International Graduate Program-Biodiversity (https://tigp-biodiv.biodiv.tw/ <https://tigp-biodiv.biodiv.tw/>) regarding to admission and studentship. The deadline for 2022 admission application (started from September, 2022) is Jan. 27, 2022 (online application). TIGP is a full-English program with the collaborative admission based on two universities in Taiwan-Taiwan Nomral University in Taipei and Tunghai University in Taichung City, Taiwan. Although speaking and listening Mandarin (office language) is not pre-quested for the admission, for those who are interested on field-based project, understanding Mandarin will be an add-on benefit to travel around Taiwan for the work.

For those who are interested in applying postdoc and PhD studentship, please direct your e-mail to Prof. Allen Chen, Biodiversity Research Centre, Academia Sinica, Taiwan (cac at gate.sinica.edu.tw <mailto:cac at gate.sinica.edu.tw>)

Cheers, Allen Chen