Graduate Research Position in Experimental Tree-Ring Science Applications are invited for a M.S. or Ph.D.-level student to fill a graduate research position that is currently available in the DendroLab (http://dendrolab.org/) at the University of Nevada Reno (http://www.unr.edu). This position is part of the current Nevada NSF-EPSCoR project entitled "Nevada Infrastructure for Climate Change Science, Education, and Outreach" (www.nvclimatechange.org), and relates mainly to the "Ecological Change" and "Water Resources" infrastructure-building components. Financial support includes a monthly stipend, support for travel to scientific meetings, field and laboratory analyses, tuition and health insurance. The position is scheduled to begin summer 2011 and is for one year, with a possibility of renewal for additional years. The successful applicant will be part of a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team that includes UNR, the Desert Research Institute (DRI), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
The specific purpose of this assistantship is to utilize the two valley-to-mountain instrumental transects, one in the Snake Range (eastern Nevada) and one in the Sheep Range (southern Nevada), funded by the NSF-EPSCoR project. A number of environmental parameters are going to be monitored at the transect locations, including atmospheric (barometric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, insolation, net radiation, snow accumulation, etc.), pedologic (soil moisture, soil temperature, etc.), and vegetational (stem increment, sap flow, NDVI, phenological changes, etc.) ones. The specific hypothesis that will be tested by the research team is how wood formation responds to climate, with particular emphasis on bristlecone growth as a record of air temperature. Radial changes will be measured using point dendrometers at half-hour intervals, and repeated microcore sampling will be combined with histological analysis to determine the timing of cambium activity, subdivision, elongation, and lignification of new xylem cells during the season. Finally, field experiments and manipulations are planned to determine how bristlecone pine rings may reflect changes in, for instance, increased summertime precipitation compared to reduced snow cover. This project is also part of an ongoing collaboration between the DendroLab and Prof. Hubert Morin's team at the Département des Sciences Fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Canada. Applicants should have an undergraduate or graduate degree in biology, wood science, engineering, hydrology, ecology, climatology, geography, applied statistics, computer science, or a related field. The ideal candidate should have a strong quantitative background and interest in proxy records of climate change. Experience in one or more of these areas is particularly welcomed: field electronics and sensors, numerical analysis in script-based environments (such as R or SAS), wood anatomy and microtomy. The successful applicant will need to be accepted in one of the following graduate programs: Geography (http://www.unr.edu/geography/graduate/), Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (http://environment.unr.edu/eecb/), Hydrologic Sciences (http://www.hydro.unr.edu/admissions/), Environmental Sciences (http://environment.unr.edu/environmental-sciences/admission/), or Atmospheric Sciences (http://www.unr.edu/interdis/atms/). Candidates should also check the University Graduate School website (http://www.unr.edu/grad/prospective/apply.asp), which includes information for international applicants. For questions or additional details on the position, please contact Prof. Franco Biondi (fbio...@unr.edu, +1 775 784-6921).
