How wonderful is the affair of a believer, for his affairs are all good, If something good happens to him he's thankful & that's good for him. If something bad happens to him, he’s patient and that's good for him - S.A.W
Recruiting PhD student and postdoc in trait based approaches to ecological synchrony Magda Garbowski, Lauren Shoemaker, and Jonathan Walter are recruiting a PhD student and a postdoc to join our team on a recently funded project applying trait based approaches to understand population and community patterns of synchrony. The PhD student will join the Functional and Restoration Ecology Lab (https://lnkd.in/gR7QqD_U) at New Mexico State University, led by Dr. Magda Garbowski and the postdoc will join Lauren Shoemaker's lab (https://lnkd.in/gAEHXcmS) at the University of Wyoming. All applications submitted by 11/3 for both positions will receive full consideration. Detailed information on the PhD position: https://lnkd.in/gmJhZBnP Detailed information on the postdoc position: https://lnkd.in/g5H2XMKE Lauren (lshoema1@uwyo.edu), Magda (garbowsk@nmsu.edu), and Jon (jawalter@ucdavis.edu) Project Overview: Synchrony, defined as correlated temporal fluctuations, such as in species' abundances, is a ubiquitous phenomenon across ecological levels of organization, and is driven by both biotic factors and abiotic environmental drivers. At the population level, correlations in temporal abundance fluctuations across distinct locations (i.e., population synchrony) increase species' extinction risk. To date, research has largely emphasized the role of environmental variation in shaping patterns of synchrony. However, species traits and their interactive effects with environmental conditions likely play major roles in regulating synchrony, as traits mediate species interactions and responses to environmental change. By integrating multi-site time series data from a global distributed experiment (the Nutrient Network) with novel trait collection, existing trait databases, and methods development, we aim to develop and empirically test frameworks for linking functional traits to synchrony across scales of ecological organization under both natural conditions and experimental treatments that alter the strength of top-down and bottom-up ecosystem controls. In Objective 1 we will synthesize multiple trait databases and collect new data on traits hypothesized to mechanistically affect synchrony, characterizing how trait composition responds to changing top-down and bottom-up controls and testing how bud bank, root, and seed traits relate to established plant form and function frameworks. In Objective 2 we will link species traits to spatial synchrony of populations, quantifying how multidimensional trait variation and trait-by-environment interactions result in interspecific differences in synchrony. In Objective 3 we will assess how community weighted mean traits and overall functional diversity determine patterns of community synchrony.
