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MRes Studentship 18 months

“Trade-offs in sexual selection and cognition”

Why do individuals vary in their cognitive abilities? EVOECOCOG, an ERC funded project, takes the disciplines of cognition and evolutionary biology into a natural setting to answer this question. It aims to do this by investigating a variety of proximate causes and population-level consequences of individual cognitive variation using a great tit Parus major population.


This MRes position will explore potential trade-offs between traits involved in pre-copulatory and post-copulatory sexual selection and their relationships with mating success and cognitive ability. The student will perform laboratory analyses of sperm sampled from male great tits in the breeding season to measure sperm quality and viability, and then relate this to mating success by performing paternity analysis using a newly purchased state-of-the-art DNA sequencer. These measures will be compared to measures of signal quality and cognitive ability to detect potential trade-offs among these traits.

The chosen study system, the great tit Parus major, is one of the most widely used in Europe, and consists of 12 subpopulations across deciduous and conifer woodland fragments in Co. Cork, Ireland. A recent state of the art aviary is also available for experimental study at the School of BEES.


This advert is for an 18 month MRes studentship. The successful student will be based in the UCC Ornithology lab at the School of BEES http://ornithology.ucc.ie. They will join a research team led by Prof. John L. Quinn, consisting of 8 early career biologists working on this project (see http://ornithology.ucc.ie/current-projects/evolutionary-ecology-of-cognition/), a Research Support Officer, and a range of other students and postdocs working on a variety of different projects in behavioural and applied ecology. The studentships will be cosupervised by Prof. J. Quinn and Dr Michael Reichert.



Candidates should possess a 2.1 BSc (Hons) degree or higher in a relevant discipline (e.g. Ecology, Zoology, Evolution, Physiology, Psychology). Applicants must be self-motivated with good numerical, communication, organisational, experimental design, and writing skills. Students with experience working under difficult conditions in the field or with an MSc are likely to have a strong advantage. A full, clean driving license will be important early in the MRes, and experience working with birds in captivity or in the wild would also be advantageous. A willingness to spend long periods of time in the field in spring, and to travel and work across different research sites is important. This position covers EU fee rates (€5,750 p.a.; non-EU members may apply but would need to cover extra international rate fees themselves), plus a tax-free stipend of approx. €16,000 p.a.



Please direct informal inquiries to Prof. John L. Quinn at j.quinn@ucc.ie

Application: To apply please send by email to Prof. John Quinn, j.quinn@ucc.ie a CV, details of 2 referees, and an accompanying 1 page letter. The letter should outline of your relevant experience, explaining why you want the studentship.



Dates: Application deadline is 28 February 2018. Interviews will be held in person or by Skype within 1 weeks. Start dates are 1 April 2018 or sooner!

University College Cork is one of Ireland’s largest and most successful universities and the studentships will be based at the School of BEES. Currently there are 28 faculty, ca. 20 postdocs and 35 PhD students across Zoology, Ecology, Plant Sciences and Geology. Cork is situated on the south coast of Ireland, 2.5 hours from Dublin, is served by an international airport, has a population of about 200,000, and is on the doorstep of some of the most beautiful coastline in Europe.




John Quinn (Professor in Zoology & Head of Discipline), School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Science (BEES), UCC, North Mall, Cork, Ireland. T23 N73K

Tel (work): 00353-21-4904546 ; Tel (mobile): 00353-(0)852266122



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