Applicants are invited for a PhD fellowship/scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Ecoscience programme. The position is available from 01 January 2027 or later. You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.
Title:
Advancing Bioacoustics to Uncover and Explain Biodiversity Change in Europe
Research area and project description:
We seek a highly motivated PhD candidate to join the Biodiversity Section at the Department of Ecoscience in Aarhus. The project will address three challenges using large-scale acoustic monitoring data across Europe, as well as elevational and seasonal case studies in South Tyrol, Italy.
1. Extracting taxonomic, life-history and dialectic signals in acoustic recordings
Embedded in the international BEAGLE and Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol (BMS) projects, the candidate will support deployment and data management of acoustic recorders across Europe. New and existing datasets will facilitate generalizable pipelines to convert recordings into validated species occurrences. The candidate will develop further tools to characterize within-species variations, using AI (e.g. BirdNET) embeddings to differentiate call types, life history (e.g. juvenile stages, sex), and dialects.
2. Exploring within-species variations across environmental gradients
The candidate will explore variation in life-history and behaviour for select bird species across Europe, to better understand migration, range expansion and contraction along environmental gradients. Field data collected along the Val Mazia elevational transect (1000–2500m) in South Tyrol will help capture elevational habitat shifts, breeding success, and seasonal patterns. Further, targeted sensor deployments will fill gaps in European biodiversity data and shed light on distributions and drivers of trends in lesser-known taxa.
3. Leveraging multi-taxa sensor data for improved biodiversity indicators
Developing methods for occupancy modelling from sensor-derived data, the candidate will explore patterns and trends in the biodiversity of birds, bats and other taxa. Diversity and essential biodiversity variables will be related to landscape characteristics derived from Earth Observation data. The candidate will identify bioindicators among a suite of bird, bat, and night-flying insect taxa recorded with sensors. Analyses will be grounded in experience gained through sensor deployments, annotations, and point counts made across Denmark and South Tyrol.
Project description. For technical reasons, you must upload a project description. Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.
Qualifications and specific competences:
Applicants to the PhD position must hold or expect to hold a master’s degree in a related field (120 ECTS).
Strong background in Python programming, experience working with machine learning and ecological data, ability to conduct field work in South Tyrol from mid-April to mid-July.
Place of employment and place of work:
The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is C.F. Møllers Allé, building 1110, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
Contacts:
Applicants seeking further information regarding the PhD position are invited to contact:
For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide. If answers cannot be found there, please contact:
How to apply:
Please follow this link to submit your application.
Application deadline is 18 September 2026 at 23:59 CEST.
Preferred starting date is 01 January 2027.
Please note:
Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which everyone has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants. All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.
