Well done David, whose work on the genetics of great scallops has been published in the Royal Society of Open Science.

You can read a press release here.

Meinolf Ottensmann has recently joined the lab to complete his masters project. He is looking at the relationship between Antarctic fur seal olfactory profiles and immune-related features of the genome. He is also a great birder and recently came first in the ‘Bielefeld Bird Race.’ Well done Meinolf!

An 18 month Early Stage Researcher position is available to work on marine population genomics in the Hoffman lab. The work is part of a Marie Curie Initial Training Network entitled CACHE (Calcium in a Changing Environment) and is coordinated by the British Antarctic Survey. The project provides an excellent opportunity for the candidate to obtain experience of diverse methodologies, from next generation sequencing to geometric morphometrics and scanning electron microscopy.

This position offers a generous stipend of at least €3700 per month, including a mobility allowance, with the possibility for fieldwork in Europe. Candidates are expected to have at least a BSc or equivalent and the deadline for applications is February 26th 2016. Please see the PDF for more details about the project and the application process.

Congratulations to Martin Stoffel who won the prize for best pre-doctoral speed talk at the 22nd Marine Mammal Biennial Conference, 2015 in San Francisco. Martin’s talk was entitled: ‘What a seal’s smell can tell – investigating the chemical basis of seal olfaction’ and you can download the slides here.

Last month Lucy Peters joined us from the University of Glasgow. Lucy is here on a 10 month placement as part of her degree in Marine and Freshwater Biology. She has been helping out in the lab and will soon begin her own project on Antarctic fur seals. Watch this space to see some of her results!

A few weeks ago, Aurelio Malo from Oxford University visited us in Bielefeld. Aurelio gave a talk on his fascinating study system and we all went for dinner in the evening. Thanks for coming Aurelio!

From left: Joe, Abi, Luke, Martin, Emily, Aurelio, Sylvie and Ben

A big welcome to David Vendrami, who joins the lab as a PhD student working on a Marie Curie funded project on the population genomics of European shellfish.

Our intrepid explorer Luke has made it to Madagascar just in time for the plover breeding season. Luke will spend almost 3 months along the south-western coast collecting valuable data for his PhD. Good luck Luke, we are looking forward to your return!