The following fully-funded PhD studentship is available in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences with an expected start date of Jan 2022.
The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences at Queen Mary is one of the UK’s elite research centres, according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. We offer a multi-disciplinary research environment and have approximately 160 PhD students working on projects in the biological and psychological sciences. Our students have access to a variety of research facilities supported by experienced staff, as well as a range of student support services.
You will join a recently started, well-funded research group led by Dr. Vicencio Oostra, embedded in the vibrant Biology Department. We use tropical and temperate butterflies to understand and predict adaptation to environmental change, including climate change. The lab has links to researchers across Europe, Africa and Latin America. Fieldwork will be supervised by Dr. Geoff Gallice at the research station of Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon in Peru, and additional supervision will be provided by Dr. Yannick Wurm (QMUL) and Prof. Jon Bridle (UCL).
Our PhD students become part of Queen Mary’s Doctoral College which provides training and development opportunities, advice on funding, and financial support for research. Our students also have access to a Researcher Development Programme designed to help recognise and develop key skills and attributes needed to effectively manage research, and to prepare and plan for the next stages of their career. Queen Mary also offers training opportunities for students via its Researcher Development program (academicdevelopment.qmul.ac.uk/researcher-development/postgraduate-research-students/).
This PhD project entails fieldwork in Peru, experimental work in the laboratory, and computational genomics. Full training in ecology, genomics, molecular biology, statistics and fieldwork will be provided by the supervisors and collaborators.
Seasonality has major impacts on populations and ecosystems, both directly via its effects on individuals’ fitness, and indirectly via species interactions. Understanding how organisms cope with these fluctuations in habitat quality is critical for our ability to predict responses to the accelerating combined effects of habitat loss and climate change. These issues are particularly urgent for tropical areas, which harbour the bulk of our planet’s biodiversity, face arguably the greatest threats, yet where our knowledge on environmental adaptation is most incomplete.
The southwestern Amazon rainforest has a pronounced dry season, where even in closed forest many understory plants dry out. Insect herbivores are abundant, diverse and ecologically important, but how they cope with seasonal reduction in food quality is unknown. In other areas, insects migrate, or switch into reproductive diapause. In the Amazon we lack basic information on seasonal adaptation in insects and their potential for adaptation to future change. You will analyse patterns and mechanisms of butterfly adaptations to seasonality, in particular reproductive diapause and migration. (1) At the community level, you will test responses of diversity and abundances to seasonality, identify key environmental drivers using spatial and temporal climate data, and test the role of reproductive diapause as adaptation to the dry season.(2) In the migratory species Panacea prola, you will identify patterns, mechanisms and environmental drivers of seasonal migration, combining genomics with ecological data.
This project will provide fundamental knowledge on biological mechanisms of adaptation to environmental variability, crucial for predicting responses to climate change and determining conservation priorities. The scientific knowledge generated during this PhD will be particularly critical for the Amazon, the most biodiverse biome on the planet which is losing biodiversity faster than we can document it, and for which evolutionary knowledge on adaptation to environmental change is virtually absent.
This studentship is open to UK residents eligible for 'home' fee status and will cover home tuition fees, and provide an annual tax-free maintenance allowance for 3 years at the Research Council rate (£19,668 in 2022/23).
Applications are invited from outstanding candidates with or expecting to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in an area relevant to the project (evolutionary biology, ecology, genomics, entomology). A masters degree is desirable, but not essential.
We seek applicants who are curious, willing to learn new skills, and able to work independently as well as in a team. Quantitative skills (e.g. statistics, computer programming), or experience in fieldwork or molecular genetics are desirable but not essential. You should be willing to travel for extended periods of fieldwork in Peru, to participate in public outreach or local capacitation, and to learn basic Spanish.
Applicants from outside of the UK are required to provide evidence of their English language ability. Please see our English language requirements page for details.
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Dr Vicencio Oostra (v.oostra@qmul.ac.uk) Formal applications must be submitted through our online form by the stated deadline.
The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences is committed to promoting diversity in science; we have been awarded an Athena Swan Silver Award. We positively welcome applications from underrepresented groups.http://hr.qmul.ac.uk/equality/ https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/about-us/athenaswan/
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Oostra, Vicencio, et al. 2018 “Strong Phenotypic Plasticity Limits Potential for Evolutionary Responses to Climate Change.” Nature Communications 9, no. 1: 1005. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03384-9.
Gallice, Geoffrey, et al. 2020 "First evidence for an Amazonian insect migration in the butterfly Panacea prola (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)." bioRxiv.https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.01.277665v1.abstract
Halali, Sridhar, et al. 2020 “To mate, or not to mate: the evolution of reproductive diapause facilitates insect radiation into African savannahs in the Late Miocene”. Journal of Animal Ecology 89(5) pp. 1230-1241https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.13178
Hoffmann and Bridle (2022). The dangers of irreversibility in an age of increasing uncertainty: revisiting plasticity in invertebrates. Oikos e08715.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/oik.08715