We are offering a PhD position at the International Max planck Research School for Quantitative Behavior, Ecology and Evolution from lab to field (IMPRS-QBEE) situated in the beautiful German town of Konstanz. It is a newly established highly interdisciplinary school that brings a full breadth of expertise from ecology to physics to computer science to neurobiology in order to understand animal behavior across the whole animal kingdom . For more information about the school, please check this website: https://www.ab.mpg.de/3228/imprs . The deadline for application is mid-january 2022: https://www.ab.mpg.de/406326/applications-2022 The PhD project I am offering is a joint project between my group and the group of Einat Couzin , both situated at the Center for advanced study of collective behavior and the Max Planck institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz. Below are the details of the project ( https://www.ab.mpg.de/426580/Couzin-Fuch_El-Hady ): Foraging is a universal, evolutionary conserved, behavior as animals in nature forage in groups across large spaces looking for resources to satisfy their energetic needs. To date, laboratory experiments have been constrained to animals foraging in small spaces and in small groups. There is an increasing evidence that both neural and behavioral dynamics, however, are principally different in natural spatial scales. The project aims to investigate basic principles underlying foraging decisions in large-scale dynamic environments, that mimic natural habitats. We will focus on two very different model organisms, each exhibits different adaptations to foraging under conditions of considerable uncertainty: swarm-forming locusts and rats. The experiments will be performed at the imaging hangar in the visual computing of collective building at Konstanz University. The imaging hangar is the largest indoor animal imaging facility in the world, offering the opportunity to perform foraging experiments at an unprecedented scale. Using patch foraging as a quintessential behavioral paradigm, and a combination of high throughput continuous video tracking and quantitative modeling approaches, we aim to elucidate how foraging strategies are updated in a changing social and physical world. You will join our interdisciplinary team at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour (https://www.ab.mpg.de/) and the Excellence Cluster for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/collective-behaviour). The Max Planck Society and Konstanz University are equal opportunity employers that are committed to provide employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, nation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. They seek to increase the number of women in those areas where they are underrepresented and therefore explicitly encourage women to apply. Requirements: • MSc in neuroscience, biology, physics and a clear interest in animal behaviour. • Quantitative skills. Proficiency in at least one programming language is required (C, Python or Matlab) • Good communication and writing skills. Supervisors: Ahmed El Hady ahady@ab.mpg.de Einat Couzin-Fuchs einat.couzin@uni-konstanz.de For more information , please do not hesitate to contact me.