Guy Mercer

Profile

Project title: Secondary Toxicity Mechanisms of Insecticides and Their Metabolism in Pollinators

Summary: Insecticides are one of the main stressors faced by pollinators, whose numbers are in global decline. Little is known about the specific enzymes responsible for insecticide detoxification and how they vary between pollinators. This project aims to develop methods to identify candidate detoxification enzymes, from genomic and transcriptomic data, and test these functional predictions in the laboratory. Characterising detoxification at the molecular level will help explain why some pollinators are more susceptible to insecticides than others and identify particularly at risk species.

Supervisors

• Dr Peter Thorpe
• Dr Yannick Wurm

Research