Woody plants are the largest aboveground terrestrial biotic carbon store. We know little about rates at which these plants are releasing carbon back to the atmosphere and how these rates will change under future climates. One of the main ways that wood is broken down in the tropics is via termites. I am looking for a graduate student to work in collaboration with Paul Eggleton from the Natural History Museum, London and me on relationships among termite traits, gut microbes, and wood construction traits.
The student would join an interactive lab group (http://biology.columbian.gwu.edu/amy-zanne) that broadly focuses on plant and microbe structure and function (anatomy and physiological ecology), community ecology, and evolutionary ecology in both temperate and tropical areas. Paul and I have ongoing projects on termites and wood decay in Queensland, Australia and Sabah, Malaysia. The graduate work will be completed at George Washington University, which is located in the heart of Washington, DC, USA with easy access to numerous science, conservation, and policy based institutions, such as the Smithsonian. If you are interested in doing graduate work with us, please send an email to me (Amy Zanne: aeza...@gmail.com) with brief details about your GPA, GRE, research interests, experience, and why you want to go to graduate school. For information about applying to the program, go to the George Washington University Department of Biological Sciences website (http://biology.columbian.gwu.edu/apply-now-graduate). The application deadline is early January. I am also happy to answer any questions you might have.
