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Ph.D. Graduate Studentship – Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA)I am looking for a highly-motivated, bright and energetic student to join my laboratory in July 2012 as a Ph.D. graduate student. The first two years (i.e. 24 months) are funded off of a Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA). When a student is accepted into the graduate program in Zoology, continued support in the form of either teaching assistantships or GRA's (depending on grant funding) is virtually assured to students in good standing. The successful candidate must apply and be accepted into the Graduate Program in the Dept of Zoology (i.e. either as Zoology or Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB)). Information on how to apply can be found here. Currently, graduate research or teaching assistants receive tuition waivers, and health care coverage. The GRA is expected to work 20 hours per week in my lab (0.50 FTE), while also conducting their own dissertation research. I have a modern, well-equipped laboratory located at the Biological Station (OU Biological Station), an approximately 2-hr drive south of the OU main campus on the north shore of Lake Texoma, as well as lab space on the main OU campus. Shared space is also available in the Zoology Core Molecular Lab (ZCML) on main campus The ZCML houses a variety of equipment for molecular ecology/evolution studies, including an ABI 16-capillary DNA analyzer. I am also a member of the core EEB faculty, an inter-departmental Ph.D. program. The ideal situation is to find a student whose interests mesh very closely with my own. My group and I study the mechanisms (e.g. selection, migration) that influence the maintenance of genetic diversity in asexual-sexual species complexes, using the freshwater cladoceran genus, Daphnia, as our primary model organism. My research bridges the fields of population genetics, environmental genomics, and evolutionary ecology. In my lab, a variety of molecular techniques (e.g. microsatellites, DNA sequencing, microarrays) are used to examine the population genetic structure of aquatic organisms, with most of my work focusing on zooplankton. We currently have several major projects. The first project with Canadian and German colleagues has been examining long-term (i.e. decadal) changes in arctic rockpool and tundra pond population genetic structure, as well as community structure among zooplankton related to climate change. A second major project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with colleagues at Oklahoma State Univ. and Indiana Univ. is focusing on the ecological and genetic information held in lake/pond sediment egg banks of freshwater invertebrates, primarily Daphnia. We employ a variety of techniques spanning the fields of molecular genetics, ecology (i.e. direct hatching of eggs, selection experiments), and environmental genomics (i.e. microarray experiments) to examine long-term (i.e. decades, centuries) shifts in population genetic structure that may be associated with concomitant shifts in environmental factors (e.g. nutrient/eutrophication history). We aim to look at how shifts in environmental factors may influence long-term temporal genetic heterogeneity in natural populations. A recent third project with colleagues in Norway, U.S., and U.K. is just getting underway to study the relationship between genome size, growth rate, and elemental composition (biological stoichiometry - C:N:P) using the freshwater microcrustacean, Daphnia, as one of our model organisms. If you would like to get a better view of the facilities here at the U. of Oklahoma, please visit the OU Biological Station website. Additional info is available on my lab's website. For more details and information, please contact: Dr. Lawrence J. Weider, Professor of Zoology
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