UNEVADA_RENO.EvolParentalCare Content: We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic evolutionary or behavioral ecologist for PhD position. The successful applicant will work on a project aimed at understanding the evolution of mating and parental care systems. The PhD candidate will work in the research group of Dr. Davide Baldan, located at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. The candidate will be based at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). UNR is a R1 institution offering a highly productive research environment. The Biology Department is home to 37 faculty members that maintain nationally recognized, extramurally funded research programs, mentor 50 graduate students, and participate in undergraduate research. The PhD candidate will join the highly interdisciplinary EECB PhD program (https://www.unr.edu/eecb), which brings together faculty and students from a range of departments. The candidate is expected to carry out fieldwork in Europe for 2-3 months per year. The candidate has the opportunity to customize his/her education according to scientific interests. Project description: Family life is a fascinating social system in which two parents must cooperate to raise the offspring together, while facing an evolutionary conflict of interest ('sexual conflict'). This conflict has led to the evolution of a variety of parental care strategies, from biparental care to female only- and male only-care. We use different songbird populations in Spain (near Madrid) and Italy (Italian Alps) to study the mechanisms and evolutionary consequences of parental care decisions. Proposed research topics in this call include: 1 - How do parents respond to each other? The candidate can plan and execute behavioral field experiments to elucidate the behavioral rules that parents adopt when negotiating care for their offspring. 2 - Neuroendocrine mechanisms mediating pair bonding and parental care. The candidate can make use of a neuroendocrine lab at UNR to study the hormonal and physiological regulation of mating and parental strategies. 3 - Effect of climate change on mating and reproductive strategies. The candidate can use long-term breeding datasets and monitor active songbird populations to investigate the effect of climate warming on reproduction of alpine birds. Qualifications The ideal candidate is highly motivated, ambitious, creative, and has a good affinity with behavioral ecology research. The successful candidate will have the following required qualifications: - the ability to work independently and in a team; - excellent conceptual capacity; - excellent command of the English language; Spanish or Italian is a plus. - excellent communication and presentation skills, both in words and in writing; - some knowledge of advanced statistics and a computer language like R. Application Interested candidates should send an email to dbaldan@unr.edu with a CV and a cover letter. You can submit your application until November 15th, 2024. The successful candidate must then submit an application package to EECB by December 15th 2024. Starting date is Spring/Fall 2024. Details about admission and requirements can be found at https://www.unr.edu/eecb/prospective-students Information For information you can contact: Davide Baldan, dbaldan@unr.edu Dr. Davide Baldan Assistant Professor Department of Biology University of Nevada, Reno 1664 N Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557 https://www.davidebaldan.com/ Davide Baldan (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to golding@mcmaster.ca)