3-6 months internship with BEM Lab at KAUST university (link). The internship includes relocation costs, housing, tuition, insurance, and a monthly stipend (see internship website). We are looking for students with interests on marine invertebrate taxonomy and ecology.

The candidate will join an active and dynamic research group, with ongoing projects related to marine biodiversity. These initiatives involve fieldwork, samples collection, preservation, sorting, identification and sequencing. The project focuses on exploring the morphological and molecular diversity of a specific taxonomic group of interest in Saudi waters of the Red Sea and/or Arabian Gulf. Key groups of interest include, but are not restricted to, Gastropoda, Polychaeta, Amphipoda. To this extent, the candidate will analyse specimens collected during ongoing biodiversity surveys in natural areas and from collectors, such as Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) and settlement panels. The identification of the specimens will be carried out with optical and, where necessary, electron microscopy. Molecular diversity will be explored through standardized DNA extraction methods employing universal or group-specific primers for the amplification and sequencing of a fragment of the COI gene. In some cases, the 18S rRNA gene may also be targeted. Special consideration will be given to species and species complexes with a biogeographical status identified as non-native or potentially non-native to the Red Sea and/or the Arabian Gulf.

Desired project deliverables include: A report describing the activities (e.g., field collection techniques) and procedures (e.g., subsampling of tissue, extraction, amplification and quantification of DNA markers, plus downstream processing) applied by the intern during the stay, as well as a database with reference to photos, taxonomy, and DNA barcode. Depending on the relevance of the results, a conference communication and/or a short publication can be expected.

Please, do not hesitate to contact me at juan.semperevalverde@kaust.edu.sa with any questions.

Thank you very much and all the best,

Juan Sempere-Valverde

Visiting Researcher at Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management Lab  (BEM lab), Red Sea Research Center (RSRC),

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST),

Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Website: https://personal.us.es/jsvalverde