PhD position: Indicators of demographic risk and resilience in wild birds

We are seeking a talented, enthusiastic, and collaborative PhD candidate to investigate how seasonal environmental change influences population vulnerability and to develop new indicators of demographic risk and resilience in wild bird populations.

When does a population decline begin?

Can impending declines be detected before they become severe?

At first glance, the answer appears obvious: populations start to decline when the number of individuals decreases. But populations often respond slowly to environmental change, and by the time a decline becomes apparent, the processes driving them may have been operating unnoticed for years. Reproductive success may have dropped, survival may have declined during migration, or environmental conditions may have deteriorated during the non-breeding season. Understanding when populations become vulnerable is one of the central challenges in ecology and conservation.

In this PhD project, you will develop and test new indicators of demographic risk and resilience using long-term data from wild bird populations. By combining ecological theory, demographic modelling, and time-series analysis, you will investigate whether seasonal demographic signals and statistical early warning indicators reveal population vulnerability before severe declines occur. Drawing on decades of bird monitoring data from around the world—including intensive long-term studies maintained by the Institute, harmonised data from the SPI-Birds Network & Database, and other major biodiversity monitoring and data standardisation schemes—you will assess the generality of indicators across populations, species, and ecological contexts. The project offers opportunities to collaborate with researchers at several institutions in Europe and North America and to contribute to efforts in biodiversity monitoring, ecological forecasting, and conservation planning.

This project is highly quantitative. During the PhD, you will develop skills in population ecology, demographic modelling, ecological forecasting, time-series analysis, Bayesian statistics, and statistical programming (primarily in R and Stan). You will gain experience working with large, long-term, multidimensional ecological datasets, developing reproducible analytical workflows, and applying open science principles. You will also develop skills in scientific writing and publishing, conference presentations, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the communication of complex scientific ideas to diverse audiences.

What you will be contributing

You should have an MSc degree in ecology, computational ecology, quantitative biology, statistics, or a related discipline. Candidates from other relevant backgrounds with strong quantitative skills and an interest in ecological questions are also encouraged.

We are looking for a curious and motivated researcher with a strong interest in population ecology, ecological forecasting, biodiversity monitoring, or demographic modelling. You should be comfortable working with data and eager to develop advanced skills in statistical modelling and programming. Experience with R, Bayesian statistics, demographic modelling, time-series analysis, or large ecological datasets is an asset, but not required.

You should be able to work independently and collaboratively, communicate clearly in spoken and written English, and be enthusiastic about developing and sharing scientific ideas. Affinity with scientific writing, data visualisation, and the presentation of research results is highly desirable. Fluency in English (CEFR C1 or equivalent) is required.

What we offer?

A fully funded, four-year PhD position in the Department of Animal Ecology. The initial appointment will be made for one year and will be extended an additional three years following a positive evaluation. Working 0.8 FTE (i.e., five years in total) is a possibility, although full-time is preferred. The preferred starting date is September 2026.

You will register as a Promovendus (PhD candidate) at Wageningen University & Research and become a member of the PE&RC Graduate School, through which you can follow courses on ecological subjects, research methods, statistical analyses, and transferrable skills. You will have opportunities to attend workshops and conferences as part of your professional development. The Department and Institute organise weekly seminars, science lunches and journal clubs to stimulate scientific discussion and exchange ideas.

Your workplace

You will be embedded within the Department of Animal Ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), located in Wageningen. You will share an office space with other PhD candidates and join a dynamic community of senior researchers, postdocs, PhDs, large-scale infrastructure coordinators, research assistants and internship students (MSc, HBO). The Department comprises seven research groups, primarily working on passerine birds and bats.

In the Department of Animal Ecology, we investigate the causes and consequences of variation in life-history traits, including the underlying physiological and genomic mechanisms, and where such variation arises in time and space. Our work often leverages our impressive long-term, individually-based datasets, including studies of hole-nesting birds and their food (caterpillar and beech seeds). Using these exceptional time series, we seek to link individual variation in life-history traits and fitness outcomes to variation in population community dynamics.

The Institute has state-of-the-art research infrastructure and expert research support personnel to enable this project, including high-performance computing, and our long-term studies and databases. We also coordinate the SPI-Birds Network and Database, which standardises and harmonises data from a global network of long-term studies of individually marked breeding birds.

About NIOO

The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) is a national research institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). At NIOO we perform ecological research on biodiversity, climate change and sustainable use of land and water. We stimulate ecological research in the Netherlands and share our ecological knowledge with society.