We are inviting applications for the position of a Postdoc starting in spring 2023 with a duration of 20 months within the project "Can parasite evolution reinforce the effects of climate warming? (Paradapt)".
It is commonly believed that global warming will result in a “sicker world”, with infectious diseases increasing in prevalence and virulence. However, these predictions are based on short-term experiments that have not recognized evolution that could lead to thermal adaptation. This project aims at answering the question whether parasites’ prevalence is altered under elevated temperatures and if long-term exposure to warming amplifies this effect. The successful candidate will analyse field samples (eDNA of water, Daphnia samples) that have been collected from a set of five artificially heated lakes that receive warm water from two power plants and have experienced an elevation in water temperature of ca. 3–4ºC for the last 60 yr. These will be compared with eDNA and Daphnia samples that have been collected from five nearby non-heated control lakes, to generate new predictions regarding the evolution of (plankton) parasites in a warmer world. There are also possibilities to run experiments, with host (zooplankton Daphnia) and parasite isolates from these different sets of lakes. The successful candidate will join the Disease Evolutionary Ecology research group. The position is located at IGB in Berlin.