PhD Position in Environmental DNA (eDNA) and Biodiversity Monitoring in Agricultural Landscapes

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 September 2026 or later. You can submit your application via the 'Apply' button above.

Title:

PhD position in environmental DNA (eDNA) and biodiversity monitoring in agricultural landscapes

Research area and project description:

The project is associated with the Centre for Nature based Solutions at the Department of Ecoscience and provides an opportunity to contribute to the development of environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches for biodiversity assessment across multiple habitat types.

The PhD project will focus on applying and developing eDNA‑based methods to assess biodiversity and ecological communities in agricultural landscapes. eDNA will be sampled from air, freshwater, and terrestrial substrates to quantify biodiversity across hedgerows, riparian zones, ponds, and wetlands. Core elements of the position include:

• Collecting and analysing airborne eDNA using air samplers to capture plants, fungi, bacteria, and insects along land‑use and NBS gradients.
• Conducting aquatic eDNA sampling in ponds, wetlands, and riparian habitats to assess fish, invertebrates, algae, and microbial communities.
• Using high‑throughput sequencing platforms (Illumina NovaSeq 6000 for metagenomics; MiSeq for metabarcoding) for all DNA analyses.
• Integrating eDNA datasets with ecological and environmental data.
• Participating in fieldwork across Denmark and collaborating with national and international project partners

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 must have a relevant master’s degree (120 ECTS) or at least one year of a master’s degree in ecology, molecular ecology, environmental science, conservation biology, or related fields before the start date.

We seek candidates with demonstrated skills or strong interest in several of the following areas:

• Environmental DNA (airborne, aquatic, or terrestrial) or molecular biodiversity tools
• Molecular laboratory work (DNA extraction, PCR, sequencing workflows)
• Bioinformatics and statistical analysis (e.g., R or Python)
• Biodiversity assessment or ecological community analysis
• Fieldwork experience in ecological or environmental sampling
• Ability to work independently and within interdisciplinary teams

Place of employment and place of work:

The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is Department of Ecoscience, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.

Contacts:

Applicants seeking further information regarding the PhD position are invited to contact: 

• Nikolai Friberg, niko@ecos.au.dk (main supervisor)
• Georgina Brennan, g.brennan@ecos.au.dk (co-supervisor)

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide. If answers cannot be found there, please contact:

• admission.gradschool.tech@au.dk 

How to apply:

Please click on the 'Apply' button above to submit your application. 

Application deadline is 01 June 2026 at 23:59 CEST.
Preferred starting date is 01 September 2026.

Please note: 

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be considered.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.

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