Tropical Ecology Group

Post-doctoral researcher to link fruit traits, tree diversity and animal-plant interaction networks in Asian tropical rainforests.

Salary: ±2500 Euro/month (± 2000 Euro net) funded by the LabEx BCDiv. Salary will vary with experience based on national salary scales defined by the CNRS.

Summary : A two year postdoctoral position is available at UMR 7179 MECADEV, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle and is funded by the LABEX Diversités biologiques et culturelles : Origines, Evolution, Interactions, Devenir of the MNHN, Paris (France). The successful candidate will work on forest tree diversity, fruit traits and frugivory interactions in Asian forests. This will involve collaboration with the scientific community in Asia, but also with other experts abroad.

IMG_0045.JPGThe project aims at evaluating the effect of forest richness and anthropogenic disturbances on frugivores-plants mutualistic and antagonistic networks. The candidate will create a database of fruit and seed traits of plants and their consumers and dispersers in Asian tropical forests. These data will be used to characterize the fruit production of 10 to 20 tropical forest plots (that are part of a long term monitoring program of tropical forest diversity) with various levels of perturbation, as well as the fit between the fruit production of these forest plots and the presence of frugivorous animals in these plots, in order to obtain an integrative analysis of the impact of anthropogenic pressures on frugivores-fruit interaction networks in tropical Asia. The post-doc will be responsible for data collection on fruit traits, frugivory and seed dispersal interaction from the scientific and grey literature. He/she will conduct the analysis and write scientific papers in collaboration with experts in tropical ecology and interaction networks.

Required skills include experience of field work in Asian tropical forests, and special acquaintance in the field of frugivory and seed dispersal. Fluency in English is required and basic level French is not needed for non-French speakers. The candidates must have shown ability to publish peer-reviewed papers, effective written and oral communications to work with a team environment, to develop scientific network, and a Ph. D. pending or received within the last three years.

Desired skills include expertise in (tropical) botany, forest ecology and tree inventory, analysis of large dataset and a strong interest to develop mutualistic network approaches.

To apply, please send a CV, a letter of motivation and two letters of recommendation to Pierre-Michel Forget (pierre-michel.forget@mnhn.fr) and Colin Fontaine (colin.fontaine@mnhn.fr) by 28th September. [Call_Post-doc_Position_Labex_BCDIV_UMR7179_sept15_final.pdf]