MNF/Open PhD position Branching spirals in deep time: Ammonoid phylogeny and macroecology

The offered PhD project will focus on building an ammonoid phylogeny in a Bayesian framework in collaboration with two Postdocs, the project leader, and a large group of international collaborators. The PhD candidate will: 1) help to define morphological characters for character matrices to study ammonoid evolution; 2) choose a large group of ammonoids, for which representative taxa shall be scored; 3) carry out Bayesian and parsimony analyses, which (4) will be integrated in an ammonoid supertree; 5) study an additional important aspect of ammonoids, such as dimorphism or variability.

The ideal candidate will be a highly motivated student of Life- or Earth Sciences with a biological, geological or palaeontological background. Excellent writing skills in English are required. Knowledge in working with methods to reconstruct phylogenies such as Bayesian and parsimony would be great; alternatively, it is expected that this knowledge is acquired early during the project. Some computational skills or experience with statistics are expected. Knowledge on ammonoid palaeobiology would also be very helpful. German language skills are an asset in daily life in and around the university but are not mandatory for the position.