PhD position in Protists Ecology
The Department of Aquatic Microbial Ecology invites application from prospective PhD students to study ecology of aquatic protists under supervision of Karel Šimek and Indranil Mukherjee.
The major focus of the project is to understand the role of middle-sized heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNF) in the size range 5-20 μm, which are either omnivores, feeding not only on bacteria, but even more so on bacterivorous HNF and algae, or predators, feeding primarily on bacterivorous or plastidic flagellates. Similarly, small ciliates (12-20 μm), currently assumed to be primarily omnivorous, actually belong to the key planktonic bacterivores in most eu- and hypertrophic aquatic habitats. The prospective student will work in both environmental samples collected from freshwater lakes in Czech Republic and brackish Baltic Sea (Gulf of Gdansk, Poland) and samples from food web manipulation experiment conducted in the laboratory.
Single-cell microscopic techniques like CARD-FISH will be primarily used to study the dynamics of individual groups of HNF. In addition, high throughput sequencing will be used to study the diversity patterns of protists.
The project title:
How complex are aquatic microbial food webs? Unveiling the trophic role of middle-sized heterotrophic flagellates in freshwater and brackish habitats
More information on project and position
Application by e-mail to Karel Šimek or Indranil Mukherjee
The PhD studies are usually guarantied by the Faculty of Science of the Univesity of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.
