The Marie­Curie Excellent Training Network PRIDE (Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise) is seeking to recruit 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to be hosted in ten top institutes across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and the United Kingdom. ​The PRIDE programme offers a unique​ opportunity to engage deeply in multidisciplinary research involving climate, geology and biosciences. The work involves considerable fieldwork in collaboration with leading institutes in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Turkey. The programme is a joint network of academic and industrial partners exposing you to very different work practices and cultures.

We will work on understanding the drivers of past biodiversity change and the current biodiversity crisis in so­called Pontocaspian biota. Currently the unique aquatic faunas of the Pontocaspian region (Caspian Sea, northern Black Sea, lakes in Turkey and the Balkans) are suffering dramatic decline. But the fauna has witnessed many biodiversity crises in its two million year history. By studying the development of lake basins and the faunas in the past two million years we want to learn what the drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity change are and what the outlook of the current biodiversity crisis is.

Further details:
http://academicpositions.eu