项目介绍

2026年9月18日

About the position

The Southern Ocean plays a disproportionately large role in the global ocean carbon cycle. Its carbon cycling is strongly influenced by zooplankton, especially Antarctic krill and salps, whose fecal pellets drive vertical carbon export. Krill depend closely on sea ice and under‑ice habitats, while salps thrive in warmer, often ice‑free waters. Warming and sea‑ice loss are already shifting their distributions and increasing spatial overlap, with implications for competition, food webs, and fisheries. Yet current ecosystem models represent these key grazers only crudely, leaving major uncertainties in future projections.

This project asks how changing interactions between Antarctic krill and salps reshape Southern Ocean ecosystems and the global carbon cycle. It will explore how sea‑ice loss, warming, predation and fisheries affect krill and salp population dynamics, and how shifts in their relative dominance alter grazing, fecal pellet production and vertical carbon export. Ultimately, it aims to reduce uncertainty in projections of Southern Ocean functioning under future climate and fishing scenarios.

What are you going to do?

You will develop stage‑structured population models for both species, explicitly including life‑history processes, sea‑ice dependence, predation and fisheries. You will couple these models to an ocean-sea‑ice-biogeochemical framework for the Antarctic Peninsula to quantify impacts on vertical carbon export. Finally, you will explore future climate and fishing scenarios to assess how shifts in krill-salp dominance affect Southern Ocean functioning.

Tasks and responsibilities:

• Complete and defend a PhD thesis within the official appointment duration of four years
• Develop and analyze stage-structured population models for krill and salp
• Couple the stage-structured models to an ocean-sea ice-biogeochemical framework to quantify how zooplankton life-histories influences vertical carbon export and local carbon cycling
• Publish your results in international scientific journals
• Present your results at meetings and scientific conferences
• Discuss your work in our group meetings, incorporate feedback, and give input to others
• Assist in teaching activities and in supervising bachelor and master students

Your profile

Your experience and profile:

• Completed, or soon-to-be completed MSc in the biological sciences or different fields in the natural sciences (e.g. computational, mathematical, earth or marine sciences) with a strong interest in ecology and modeling
• Demonstrated experience with mathematical modelling, and an ability to learn new concepts and (computational) methods as needed
• A demonstrated ability to work with programming languages such as R, Python, Matlab, or C++
• A keen interest in advancing our understanding of marine ecosystems, polar regions, and/or biogeochemistry
• Proficient communication skills in spoken and written English
• Experience in scientific writing, bifurcation analysis or numerical ocean modeling are considered a plus.

Our offer

A temporary contract for 38 hours per week for the duration of 4 years (the initial contract will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it will be extended for a total duration of 4 years). This should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). We will draft an educational plan that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. We also expect you to assist in teaching undergraduates and master students. The preferred starting date is as soon as possible. For this position the University Job Classification profile “Promovendus” (PhD candidate) applies. Your salary will be € 3.204 gross per month in the first year and will increase to € 4.051 in the final year, based on full-time employment of 38 hours per week. In addition, you will receive a 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% year-end allowance.  

A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants.

The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.

Besides the salary and a vibrant and challenging environment at Science Park we offer you multiple fringe benefits:

• 232 holiday hours per year (based on fulltime) and extra holidays between Christmas and 1 January;
• multiple courses to follow from our Teaching and Learning Centre;
• a complete educational program for PhD students;
• multiple courses on topics such as leadership for academic staff;
• multiple courses on topics such as time management, handling stress and an online learning platform with 100+ different courses;
• 7 weeks birth leave (partner leave) with 100% salary;
• partly paid parental leave;
• the possibility to set up a workplace at home;
• a pension at ABP for which UvA pays two third part of the contribution;
• the possibility to follow courses to learn Dutch;
• help with registration at UvA- Housing for a studio or small apartment when you’re moving from abroad. 

Are you curious to read more about our extensive package of secondary employment benefits, take a look here.