The increasing frequency and severity of extreme climatic events, such as heatwaves and droughts, due to future global climate change will have detrimental effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Vulnerable species or those that are less able to adapt are likely to go extinct, triggering compensatory mechanisms among surviving species. For instance, emerging research suggests that climate warming will lead to a shift toward more herbivorous diets in many ectotherm consumers. However, the ecological mechanisms underlying such trophic plasticity and its community-level consequences remain poorly understood. Furthermore, previous food web models often fail to account for trophic plasticity under climate warming, where consumers can expand or shift their diets. As trophic plasticity, and resulting network rewiring, has the potential to stabilize natural ecosystems facing extreme climate, current modelling approaches provide only limited assessments of the complex species interactions.
This project aims to enhance our understanding of species dynamics within complex ecosystems by combining (i) more realistic food web experiments, (ii) natural food web data from different latitudes, (iii) random matrix theory, and mechanistic dynamical modelling. We will investigate the consequences of changes in relative species abundances, reflecting the overall effects of climate change and related compensatory processes, to ecosystem functioning, such as production, decomposition, and nutrient mineralization. This multidisciplinary project will significantly advance our knowledge of the direct and indirect effects that alter community structure and ecosystem function in the face of global climate change.
You will become an active member of two vibrant and collaborative research groups; (i) Dr Kratina’s group of Aquatic Food Web Ecology (http://ecologykratina.x10.mx) and (ii) Dr Ma’s group of Computer Sciences (https://sites.google.com/view/athenma/home) and closely linked to our wider team evaluating the Impacts of Global Environmental Change on Ecological Networks. You will receive formal training in designing community-level experiments, innovative analyses of global datasets and mechanistic dynamical modelling and will be expected to present your findings at national and international conferences.
Find out more about the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences on our website.
We are seeking candidates who have or are expected to receive a first-class or upper-second-class honours degree and a Master's degree in a field relevant to the project, such as community ecology, biology, or mathematics. The successful candidate will work with an interdisciplinary team of experts from the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Biological Science at QMUL, should be eager to learn new techniques and support other members of the team. The ideal candidate should have experience in designing ecological experiments and a strong background in statistical analyses and modelling. Previous knowledge of network modelling and simulations would be highly beneficial but is not a requirement.
You must meet the IELTS requirements for your course and upload evidence before CSC’s application deadline, ideally by 1st March 2025. You are therefore strongly advised to sit an approved English Language test as soon as possible, where your IELTS test must still be valid when you enrol for the programme.
Please find further details on our English Language requirements page.
Formal applications must be submitted through our online form by 29th January 2025 for consideration. Please identify yourself as a ‘CSC Scholar’ in the funding section of the application.
Applicants are required to submit the following documents:
Find out more about our application process on our SBBS website.
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Dr Pavel Kratina AT p.kratina@qmul.ac.uk Admissions-related queries can be sent to sbbs-pgadmissions@qmul.ac.uk
Shortlisted applicants will be invited for a formal interview by the supervisor. If you are successful in your QMUL application, then you will be issued an QMUL Offer Letter, conditional on securing a CSC scholarship along with academic conditions still required to meet our entry requirements.
Once applicants have obtained their QMUL Offer Letter, they should then apply to CSC for the scholarship with the support of the supervisor.
For further information, please go to the QMUL China Scholarship Council webpage.
Apply Online