Graduate Opportunities (10 positions) Five NSERC-strategic projects in Aquatic Sciences Watershed Ecosystems Graduate Program We are seeking 10 graduate students (Masters or Ph.D.) to work as part of multidisciplinary teams on five NSERC-funded strategic research programs in the area of Aquatic Sciences and Aquatic Ecology. The positions would be based at Trent University as part of the Watershed Ecosystems Graduate Program. Financial support will be provided through a combination of research and teaching assistantships. Interested candidates should have a background in ecology, environmental science,physical geography, toxicology, biology or environmental chemistry and be able to develop and conduct independent scientific research. For more information on the graduate program please see http://www.trentu.ca/wegp/. The positions would ideally begin between May and September 2008. For consideration, please send to the appropriate contact below (e-mail is preferred): a letter of intent, including a statement of interests, a resume, and names and addresses of 3 references. Unofficial transcripts would also be appreciated.
1) Effects of land use on riverine food webs (Principal Investigator Dr. Marguerite A. Xenopoulos, 2 graduate positions). This project will address how environmental stress related to land use (nutrient loading and metal contamination) influences the integrity of and ecological services provided by freshwater mussel beds. The focus of these positions will be to compare commonly used indicators of ecosystem health (nutrient loading, metal contamination, diversity and species abundance indices) with more novel techniques and measurements (stable isotopes, fatty acid analysis, and ecological stoichiometry) that evaluate key ecological processes in native freshwater mussel communities and related organisms in the food web. The students will be supervised/co-supervised by Dr. Douglas Evans (http://www.trentu.ca/academic/ers/EvansD.shtml),Dr. Paul Frost (http://people.trentu.ca/paulfrost/) and/or Dr. Marguerite Xenopoulos (http://people.trentu.ca/mxenopoulos/). 2) Source partitioning of metal contaminants using isotope ratios (Principal Investigator Dr. Douglas Evans, 2 graduate positions). This project investigates the use of variations in isotope ratios of trace metals as a means of determining the sources of contamination to the environment. Focusing on the metals copper, zinc and uranium, the project aims to establish the sources and magnitude of natural variations in isotope ratios of these metals in biotic and abiotic compartments in aquatic systems. The objective will be to determine in systems with known point source contamination the isotopic signatures in comparison with systems with diffuse sources of contamination. Students will be supervised/co-supervised by Dr. Peter Dillon (http://www.trentu.ca/academic/biogeochemistry/) and/or Dr. Douglas Evans. 3) Catchment controls on declining lake phosphorus concentrations (Principal investigator Dr.Catherine Eimers, 2 graduate positions). We are looking for two highly motivated students to investigate the catchment controls on declining phosphorus (P) concentrations that have been observed in a number of Canadian Shield lakes in Ontario over the past few decades. Student projects will specifically look at (a) the role of soil acidification, and (b) the hydroclimatic controls on P export from catchments. This research will be conducted in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of Environment Dorset Environmental Science Centre (DESC), and will involve field and laboratory work as well as the analysis of existing surface water and soil data. Students will be supervised/co-supervised by Dr. Catherine Eimers (http://www.trentu.ca/academic/geography/CEimers.html) and Dr. Shaun Watmough (http://www.trentu.ca/academic/ecosystems/people.html) and will receive committee support from Dr. Peter Dillon and Dr. Andrew Paterson (DESC). 4) Metal speciation and bioavailability in freshwaters affected by oil sands activities (Principal Investigator Dr. Céline Guéguen, 2 graduate positions). This project will address the impact of Albertas oil sands on the biogeochemical cycles of metals in the Athabasca River watershed. The project includes the set-up of laboratory and field-based experiments to investigate the physical and chemical forms of metals. One student will be focusing on physical speciation using tangential flow filtration (Co-supervision with Dr. Peter Dillon) whereas the second student will be working on the chemical speciation and bioavailability using Diffusive Gradients in Thin films (DGT). Both students will be working at the Worsfold Water Quality Centre at Trent University (www.trentu.ca/wqc). We are looking for excellent candidates with a strong interest in biogeochemical cycles of trace metals in aquatic environments. 5) The emerging threat of calcium decline: Quantifying current and predicting future calcium levels and their effects on aquatic biota (Investigators: Norman Yan and Jorg Grigull, York University, and Julian Aherne and Shaun Watmough, Trent University;2 graduate positions @ Trent). This is a joint research project between scientists at Trent University (www.trentu.ca/ecosystems) and York University that aims to investigate the magnitude, spatial extent and biological impact of declining calcium levels in Ontario lakes, with a major focus on the Muskoka watershed region of central Ontario (2EB). In total, four graduate projects are included in this study, two based at Trent University: (1) quantify the effects of timber harvesting and forest fires on base cation and anion export from watersheds (Watmough and Aherne at Trent), and (2) to combine the results of three sub-projects into an environmental risk assessment of the impacts of various alternative scenarios of acid deposition rates, logging and fire management scenarios on calcium decline in watershed 2EB and resultant impacts on crustacean zooplankton (Aherne at Trent, but co-supervised by all PIs). For further details please see: www.trentu.ca/ecosystems/opportunities.html. To apply or for more information please contact the potential supervisor associated with project of interest: Dr. Julian Aherne Environmental and Resource Studies, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Catherine Eimers Department of Geography, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Paul Frost Department of Biology, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Douglas Evans Environmental and Resource Studies, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Céline Guéguen Department of Chemistry, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Marguerite Xenopoulos Department of Biology, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr. Shaun Watmough Environmental and Resource Studies, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
