3 PhD positions at the Earth Surface Dynamics Group

These doctoral positions are part of a broader effort to explore and model the connections between landscape evolution and biological speciation and diversification over geological timescales. Collaborators within the Department of Environmental Sciences will also be involved in the project. The fundamental question to be addressed is how does tectonics affect physical geography or other landscape factors defining habitat and how does the change in those parameters over space and time impact speciation, species dispersal and biodiversity. Three specific case studies will be investigated to explore these questions.

The first project will explore the early collisional orogeny in northern Taiwan and the establishment of topographic barriers to species migration. Focus will be on establishing timing of the early collision using thermochronometry and its relationship to established phylogenies.
The second project will investigate the rate of landscape change in Madagascar with its extraordinary diversity of endemic species. Detrital cosmogenic radionuclide techniques will be combined with geomorphic analysis to establish rates and history of topographic evolution of the island and the relationship to species diversification and spatial distributions.
The third project will study aquatic species of northern Italy through the use of environmental DNA to establish how the fluvial river network was impacted by the uplift of the Apennines and the establishment of a north-south barrier along Italy.