Hyper-arid hot deserts experience some of the most severe climatic conditions on Earth,\u00a0and are often used to understand the potential for life on exoplanets such as Mars. In\u00a0addition, studying the biology in these environments helps us to understand how\u00a0ecosystems will respond to future climate change (e.g. extreme drought events). This\u00a0project aims to define the critical point at which life can survive in these hostile\u00a0environments in terms of moisture and resource availability. It will focus on the microbial\u00a0life that exists in desert soils from around the world (e.g. Atacama Desert in Chile, Gibson\u00a0Desert in Australia). The studentship will use the latest isotope tracer techniques to\u00a0measure and image microbial activity in soil. It will also use molecular techniques (e.g.\u00a0metagenomics) to understand the composition and functioning of these communities. The\u00a0studentship will involve travel to Australia to use the NanoSIMS imaging facility as well as\u00a0attending conferences on microbial ecology and astrobiology. The PhD is also expected\u00a0to generate a series of high quality journal publications to enhance the student\u2019s future\u00a0career prospects.<\/p>\n
Applicants should hold (or be expected to achieve) a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in subjects such as Biology, Microbiology, Environmental Science, Geography or Natural Sciences.<\/p>\n
For further details please contact Professor Davey Jones d.jones@bangor.ac.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hyper-arid hot deserts experience some of the most severe climatic conditions on Earth,\u00a0and are often used to understand the potential for life on exoplanets such as Mars. In\u00a0addition, studying the biology in these environments helps us to understand how\u00a0ecosystems will respond to future climate change (e.g. extreme drought events). This\u00a0project aims to define the critical… Read More »Pushing the limits: Life in extreme desert environments<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":5813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-5812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-51","tag-bangor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/files\/2017\/10\/Davey-Jones-Image-400x400px.jpg?fit=400%2C400","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kFzn-1vK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6405,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812\/revisions\/6405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}