Research Fellow in Microbial Ecology

University of Aberdeen - School of Biological Sciences

We seek to appoint an enthusiastic, interactive, and creative postdoctoral fellow Research Fellow in Microbial Ecology to take a leading role in a BBSRC-funded project. The project is funded for 33 months, and there will be opportunities for contract extension via fellowship development and grant applications. This position is integrated within a collaborative project between the University of Aberdeen and Durham University to work on Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI). The overall aim of this proposal is to investigate BNI in rice, by understanding the nature of natural variation in BNI efficiency in both domesticated and wild rice.

The main aim of the selected applicant will be to elucidate the ecological mechanisms by which the Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI) is regulated in soil-grown rice. Many plants release molecular inhibitors of nitrification (oxidation of ammonia into nitrite), and these BNI compounds inhibit both ammonia‐oxidising bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA). This BNI process has the potential to mitigate nitrous oxide emissions, increase nitrogen fertiliser use efficiency and reduce eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems. The post-doctoral researcher will identify the BNI compounds in several high-BNI lines using LC-MS combined with advanced statistical approaches and test their inhibition profile on an ammonia oxidiser culture collection. They will also estimate the impact of the BNI compounds on the diversity and activity of total microbial communities and on ecosystem function processes to integrate the BNI knowledge within a global ecosystem context. The applicant will be encouraged to propose other important hypotheses and ideas to be tested during the project timeframe.

The post is a collaboration between the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Natural and Computing Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. The lead investigators at Aberdeen provide multidisciplinary expertise: Prof. Cecile Gubry-Rangin, a microbial ecologist (https://www.gubry-rangin.com/), Prof. Marcel Jaspars, an organic chemist (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/m.jaspars) and Dr Gareth Norton, a plant molecular geneticist (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/g.norton). The selected candidate will have many opportunities to collaborate with other post-doctoral researchers and PhD students, including microbiologists, soil scientists, modellers, plant scientists and bioinformaticians, employed on other sustainable agriculture (such as BNI on wheat) or affiliated projects in the University of Aberdeen. This project is one of several funded projects currently investigating BNI within the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen.

Salary will be at Grade 6, £38,249 per annum.

Informal enquiries should be made to Prof. Cecile Gubry-Rangin, e-mail: c.rangin@abdn.ac.uk