The proposal should focus on the research areas or topics offered by the supervisors (see PhD Project PIs) and should be well-structured, not exceeding 2-3 pages.

Include a title, a brief introduction to the field, the research question you intend to address, the methods you plan to use to answer this question, and, if possible, some speculation on the potential impact of the results. Finally, include references.

The proposal must be written in English. Please also specify the research area or topic and the potential supervisor.

Please select one of the supervisors and research areas and topics for your application. Your research proposal should be based on one of the research areas and topics.

Some of the PIs are located directly at the iDiv core centre in Leipzig. Others are located in Halle and Görlitz. All PIs are part of the iDiv member network.

If you have a scientific question about the research areas and topics, please contact the PIs directly.

Prof. Dr. Antonis Chatzinotas

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

We are interested in the diversity, ecology and application of microbial interactions. This includes interactions between bacteria and protists, viruses (phage) or predatory bacteria, respectively, in terrestrial systems/plants/hosts. A computational project could involve working on existing global or field data (e.g. on metagenomes or viromes from soils, subsurface or hosts), an experimental project could include experiments to study the use of predators/viruses for pathogen control, for manipulation of microbial communities or for plant resilience in response to diversity or climate gradients.

Work place: Leipzig

Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Assessment and Mapping of BES through mixed methods approaches

Social-Ecological Systems: Delineation of Boundaries and Actor-based Characterization of Social-Ecological Systems; Modelling of Scenarios and resulting Spatial Pattern within Social-Ecological Systems and Impacts on Biodiversity and Natural Resources.

Transformative Changes: Impacts of Transformative Changes in Social-Ecological Systems on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – Feed-back Loops between Biodiversity Changes and Human Interventions.

Regional expertise in the Global South: Latin-America and Africa

Work place: Halle (Saale)

Prof. Dr. Alexandra Muellner-Riehl

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

1) Biogeography, evolution, systematics, taxonomy of plants: the mission of our group is to describe biodiversity in species-rich areas of the world and elucidate the processes giving rise to this biodiversity,
concentrating on widely distributed and speciose genera and families and on geographic areas of high global conservation priority, e.g., Southeast Asia, mountains of Southwest and Central China, Central and South America, and sub-Saharan Africa. PhD projects will be jointly developed with prospective PhD candidates, e.g. on the economically and ecologically important angiosperm plant family Meliaceae (mahogany family).

2) Desertification and regreening in Africa (Great Green Wall): PhD projects will be jointly developed with prospective PhD candidates in collaboration with our “Plants and Politics” working group who explores the intricate relationship between plant cover and politics in desertification-affected areas of the Sahel zone. Many of these regions experience significant environmental changes, resulting in new or further escalating conflicts, and vice versa. At the same time, security concerns arising from these conflicts often put limits to in-depth and long-term research in these areas. To address this situation, we conduct an innovative combination of political, economic and anthropological conflict studies together with environmental and ecological analyses both on the ground and remotely in the Sahel zone. In a time of escalating ecological and political crises, such studies are highly relevant and urgent.

Work place: Leipzig

Prof. Dr. Henrique Pereira

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

Development of projections for multiple components of biodiversity under rewilding scenarios in Europe. This project will link to the BES SIM 2 project being developed by iDiv as a contribution to the new Nature Futures Scenarios for IPBES.

Work place: Leipzig

Prof. Dr. Anton Potapov

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

soil biodiversity, food webs, stable isotopes, ecosystem functioning

Work place: Görlitz

Prof. Dr. Anja Widdig

Website

Research area / topics for potential PhD projects:

The group works on non-human primates with research topics ranging from primate conservation and conservation education, primate adaptations to human disturbance, primate genomics to primate chemical ecology. The project aims to be conducted on one of these topics in endangered primate species in Asia.

Work place: Leipzig

A suitable reference letter writer can provide additional information about your academic performance, skills, and character. The best referees are those who know you well.

We recommend you choose people with whom you have worked closely, such as your current or previous supervisor, mentor, lecturer, or tutor.

Please make sure that you get permission from the referees to nominate them, and make sure to include their institutional email address.

English is the primary language used at iDiv and within the research groups. Therefore, fluency in spoken and written English is essential.

While knowledge of German is not required, we encourage learning the language, and the scholarship provides financial support for German language courses.