Junior Research Fellow, Uma Ramakrishnan’s lab, NCBS
Investigating connectivity in the montane ‘sky-island’ ecosystem in the Western Ghats through genetics of a threatened,endemic bird, the White-bellied Shortwing
Montanespecies live at high elevations, making their distributions naturallyfragmented. Habitat degradation further accentuates fragmentation, making itcritical to investigate connectedness between habitat patches for threatened,endemic montane species, such as the White-bellied Shortwing. We seek to usegenetic tools to investigate both evolutionary (using slower evolvingmitochondrial and nuclear sequence data) and historical (using faster evolvingmicrosatellite data) connectivity in this species. The data we generate willaid in future conservation efforts for this species. We hope to extend thisapproach to other montane species, including shola and grassland specialist birdsand plants.
The project involves field-based sample collection, lab-based molecular biology,followed by extensive population genetics analyses. The position is availablefor 2.5 years (on this grant), extendable to 3 years (on other grants).Quantitative skills are very important for this position. Please contact uramakri@ncbs.res.inif you are interested. More details on the project are at www.tinyurl.com/robinv
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