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PhD Opportunities

This lists details the PhD projects that we are aware of. They are by no means exhaustive and the institutions listed, and others, may well be offering additional projects. Further details for many of these projects are already available on institutional websites. Note that application deadlines can be as early as January, and interviews usually take place during the period January-April.

To add a PhD opportunity please use our online form: Add a PhD Opportunity.

Notices with expiry dates before this date are not shown.
You may filter by the project funding statues.
Institution: University of Tartu
Supervisor(s): Prof. Toomas Tammaru (University of Tartu) & Dr. John Clarke (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń). Options to collaborate with Sebastian Höhna (LMU Munich) and Niklas Wahlberg (Lund University).
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: We are looking for a PhD student to perform part of a larger, lab wide project entitled: “Comparative studies on insects: a focus on body size" financed by Estonian Research Council (2020-2024) and carried out at Estonia’s leading research centre: the University of Tartu (https://www.ut.ee/en). The lab wide project focuses on reconstructing moth phylogenies on the basis of DNA sequences and performing various analyses of trait evolution on the basis of these novel phylogenies. More information...
Expiry Date: Monday, February 17, 2020
Institution: Durham University
Supervisor(s): Dr Martin R. Smith (Durham University)
Funding Status: Funding is in place for this project
Description: In the opening chapters of the Phanerozoic æon, the principal members of the cast belong to Superphylum Ecdysozoa. The ecdysozoan fossil record comprises complex burrows, mineralized and carbonaceous cuticular elements, exceptionally preserved soft-bodied compression fossils, and phosphatized microfossils of complete, often juvenile, individuals. The meaning of this fossil record is made difficult to decipher by the ambiguous position of these vermiform taxa on the tree of life. More information...
Expiry Date: Friday, February 28, 2020
Institution: University of Leicester
Supervisor(s): Professor Mark Purnell, University of Leicester, mark.purnell@le.ac.uk; Professor Sarah Gabbott, University of Leicester; Dr. Thomas Clements, University of Birmingham; Dr Neil Davies, Cambridge University; Dr Alex Liu, Cambridge University
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: Project Highlights: Use state of the art instruments and quantitative approaches to address significant problems in taphonomy, exceptional preservation, and early animal origins Develop a range of skills in experimentation and analysis, applied to paleobiology Join a dynamic multidisciplinary group working across the interface of geology, palaeobiology and surface metrology (engineering) More information...
Expiry Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Institution: University of Birmigham
Supervisor(s): Dr Sam Giles (University of Birmingham), Dr Thomas Clements (University of Birmingham), Dr Zerina Johanson (Natural History Museum), Dr Ivan Sansom (University of Birmingham)
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: Ray-finned fishes account for over half of living vertebrates and have a nearly half-a-billion year evolutionary history, surviving and flourishing in the wake of several mass extinctions Despite thousands of exceptionally preserved fossils, the impact of the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction on ray-finned fish evolution is particularly poorly constrained More information...
Expiry Date: Thursday, March 19, 2020
Institution: University of Leicester
Supervisor(s): Prof Mark Purnell, University of Leicester, mark.purnell@le.ac.uk; Prof Sarah Gabbott, University of Leicester
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: Project Highlights: Test hypotheses of ecological and evolutionary diversification and displacement linked to environmental change over historical and longer timescales Conduct the first systematic analysis dental microwear in cichlids Apply quantitative texture analysis to present day, historical and sub-fossil cichlid teeth to test and constrain hypotheses of diet and dietary responses to environmental change More information...
Expiry Date: Friday, March 20, 2020
Institution: University of Leeds
Supervisor(s): Prof. Paul Wignall (University of Leeds), Dr Alex Dunhill (University of Leeds), Dr David Bond (University of Hull)
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: Summary: More information...
Expiry Date: Thursday, April 30, 2020
Institution: University of Leeds
Supervisor(s): Dr Daniel Hill (University of Leeds), Dr Alex Dunhill (University of Leeds), Dr Fiona Gill (University of Leeds)
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: Despite high levels of complexity and a vast array of different ecosystems, the modern terrestrial biosphere has a number of unifying properties. One such property and a key feature of most ecosystems is the terrestrial ecological pyramid. Most biomass is contained within the primary producers, typically photosynthetic plants, with herbivores an order of magnitude less massive and carnivores composing a relatively minor portion of the biomass. This biomass structure holds over almost all terrestrial ecosystems, independent of productivity, climate, biome etc. More information...
Expiry Date: Thursday, April 30, 2020
Institution: University of Leeds
Supervisor(s): Dr Alex Dunhill (University of Leeds), Dr Andrew Beckerman (University of Sheffield), Dr Jennifer Dunne (Santa Fe Institute), Prof. Paul Wignall (University of Leeds)
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: The diversity of modern marine animals has increased dramatically over the past 230 million years, beginning with an event called the Mesozoic Marine Revolution (MMR). Over this period, marine fauna has gradually developed from sessile, epifaunal benthic assemblages in the Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic to more motile and structured/tiered communities we see today through the Late Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Is there evidence of changes in trophic structure and trait evolution that indicate evolutionary escalation in Mesozoic oceans? More information...
Expiry Date: Thursday, April 30, 2020
Institution: University of Sheffield
Supervisor(s): Professor Charles Wellman (University of Sheffield), Professor Paul Strother (Boston College), Professor Paul Kenrick (The Natural History Museum, London)
Funding Status: Funding is in competition with other projects and students
Description: This project will investigate a newly discovered lagerstätten that provides an unparalleled insight into life on land one billion years ago. More information...
Expiry Date: Friday, May 1, 2020