University of Glasgow 15 fev 08

Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences (IBLS), University of Glasgow

http://www.findaphd.com/search/showproject.asp?projectid=15971

Optimal Incubation Strategies in Birds: Parent and Offspring Responses

Background: Offspring depend on favourable conditions for successful development. Incubating birds face an interesting trade-off between self-maintenance and maintaining favourable egg temperature for optimal embryo development. It is usually thought that only parents provide the favourable thermal environment needed for optimal development of their offspring and this can be relatively costly to the parent, particularly when only one parent incubates. However, the offspring might also play an active role, for example by adjusting their own production of metabolic heat; such changes will have negative as well as positive consequences. To understand optimal avian incubation strategies, we really need to know how embryos respond to changes in conditions and this will be the main focus in this studentship.

Objectives: The studentship will look at how embryos respond to changes in incubation conditions using novel instrumentation that is able to record embryo heart rate non-invasively in the field. The student will design experiments to test a number of hypotheses.

Applications are invited from students who either hold, or expect to obtain, a First or Upper Second class Honours degree in a relevant subject or who hold a relevant Masters degree. Experience in fieldwork and interest in physiology and using data loggers would be useful. The student will join an active research group at the Division of Environmental & Evolutionary Biology (http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/eeb/) at the Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences.

Please send a copy of your CV together with a covering letter and the names and contact details of two academic referees to Ruedi Nager (email r.nager@bio.gla.ac.uk), Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ. Application deadline is the 15 February 2008.

Funding Notes
NERC-funded PhD Studentship
Supervisors: Prof Pat Monaghan and Dr Ruedi Nager, Division of Environmental & Evolutionary Biology
Start date: October 2008