진학프로석·박사 채용 접수 플랫폼

Global climate change and pollution are major threats to ecosystem integrity and biodiversity, and challenge a sustainable future. Climate change affects the accumulation and effects of pollutants in organisms, so-called climate-induced toxicant sensitivity. In the SoilStress project funded by the Research Council of Norway (project number 358314), we address mechanisms underlying cumulative effects, recovery, and ecophysiological tipping points from multiple stressor disturbances (climate change and pollution). We will study complex questions of WHY key biological responses to multiple stressors (climatic stress and agricultural used pesticides) differ between populations, micro-climate, and climatic regions; WHY tolerance to pesticide exposure decreases with temperature stress; and IF the tipping point to disturbance by temperature and pesticides, and recovery from disturbance removal, depends on the populations phenotypic plasticity and/or genetic adaptation. As our model system, we study springtails (Collembola), key terrestrial ectothermic invertebrates of the soil community.

The postdoc will be mainly responsible for conducting long-term laboratory experiments investigating why pesticides exhibit increased toxicity to springtails at higher temperatures, exploring mechanisms such as enhanced bioaccumulation leading to elevated internal concentrations, metabolic scaling effects, and the rising costs of repair and homeostasis maintenance under pesticide-induced stress. This involves analyzing toxicokinetic processes in the ecologically relevant species Hypogastrura viatica and its diet across varying temperatures and exposure concentrations, while considering how temperature influences uptake, elimination, biotransformation, and the formation of potentially more toxic metabolites. The role emphasizes sublethal effects on fitness, using demographic modeling to assess impacts from genes to populations, and testing hypotheses related to metabolic rate increases, energy allocation shifts, temperature-dependent bioaccumulation, and varying toxicity across biological levels.

For more information and how to apply: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/292636/postdoctoral-research-fellow-in-soil-invertebrate-ecotoxicology