About the role
We are looking for a motivated post-doctoral researcher to assess potential zoonotic disease transmission pathways between bats humans. As part of an international consortium – OneBAT-funded by Horizon Europe you will collaborate with researchers across Europe.
Using a One Health approach, the OneBat consortium investigates the steps that could lead to viral transmission. The Sussex team is particularly interested in bat ecology, cat-bat-human interactions, and the epidemiology of viruses in bat populations and spill-overs into other hosts. You will need to have strong numeric skills for this post, with experience in techniques such as species distribution modelling and statistical analyses in R. In addition, you will need to conduct field research and conduct surveys involving members of the public and veterinarians.
One key objective of the research is to investigate potentially risky interactions between bats and cats or humans, using techniques including distribution overlap maps, questionnaire surveys of bat rehabilitation centres, and DNA-based assessment of cat-bat interactions. Another key objective is to use spatially-explicit modelling-based approaches, such as Circuitscape or Least Cost Pathways, to understand potential migration pathways of bats across Europe.
The researcher will support the consortium in establishing a MOTUS network of radiotracking receivers and analyse data on short- and long-distance movements of bats. In addition, they may be required to radiotag bats using BlueBat+ tags as a means of monitoring their movement across Europe.
About you
You will have a PhD or equivalent level experience in movement ecology and spatially-explicit modelling, and have a strong interest in statistical methods for analysing radiotracking data. You will need a high level of competency in using R, and ideally an ability to use alternative programming languages such as Python. You will also need to be familiar with curating large and complex datasets.
The job also requires skills in field ecology, and it essential that you have previous experience in handling bats under Natural England licence in order to ensure that radiotags can be fitted to bats within the project’s time-frame. The research will require significant amounts of interaction with members of the public, volunteer bat workers and professional ecologists, and so excellent inter-personal skills are essential.
