[Entm-beu] Fwd: FYI

[Krista Zavala]

Sent on behalf of Fernando Amin Fleites Ayil <
fernandoamin.fleitesayil at ucr.edu>

*From: *wil50772 <lena.wilfert at ur.de>
*Subject: **PhD Position available*
*Date: *24 November 2025 at 20:48:49 CET
*To: *Ruth Archer <rutharcher0 at gmail.com>

Dear friends and colleagues

Ruth Archer and I have a Phd position available that we would like to
advertise. It would be great if you could pass it on to anyone you think
might be interested.

All the best

Lena

*We are currently looking for a PhD student to join us on the BuggedBugs
project – deadline for applications 14thof December 2025.*

This 3-year PhD studentship is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories (
https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de), a large-scale long-term project
to study how land use affects biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.  With
the project "BuggedBugs", led by Prof. Lena Wilfert and Dr Ruth Archer, we
will ask how climate change and land-use interact to affect host community
composition, abundance and health, and how this in turn is reflected in the
biodiversity and composition of their parasite community. To do this, we
will use the unique long-term Biodiversity Exploratories (data alongside
samples of true bugs (Heteroptera) and their parasites collected since
2008. Collectively, this will expand our understanding of an important but
hidden axis of biodiversity (parasites) and what they tell us about
ecosystem health.

The PhD student will use powerful molecular approaches to characterize the
parasite communities of some preserved true-bug samples, but also go out
into the field to collect recent samples. The candidate will help ID and
phenotype the true bugs, so that we can relate land-use and climate to both
these important insects, as well as the parasites they host. Accordingly,
skills in the following would be advantageous: molecular biology, taxonomy,
morphometrics and confidence with the statistical program R and willingness
to learn ecological modelling approaches. This project is part of a
multi-team and long-term program across Germany, using interdisciplinary
approaches to study how land-use affects biodiversity and ecosystem
processes. It offers excellent opportunities for training, collaboration
and networking with leading institutes in ecology. The PhD student will be
part of Prof. Wilfert’s group at the University of Regensburg, embedded in
the new focal research group on biotic interactions in the Anthropocene (
https://go.ur.de/biotic-interactions); the student will also be part of the
local grad school (https://www.rigel-regensburg.de).

The position will start on the 1st of March 2026; it is for three years and
the salary is TV-L E13 65%.


For more information and to apply please contact lena.wilfert at ur.de. To
apply, please send your CV and a cover letter by the 14th of December.
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