PhD position advertised to research how bee foraging performance and

colony fitness are affected by stressors in fragmented rural

landscapes'

Supervisors: Dr Richard Gill (
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 ), Dr Samraat Pawar

(Life Sciences)

Location: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood

Park campus

Deadline: 18^th January 2016

Increased agricultural practices have resulted in the clearance and

fragmentation of many natural habitats posing potential challenges to

wildlife such as insect pollinators. For eusocial bees (e.g. honeybees

& bumblebees), who provide a crucial pollination service, increased

floral habitat patchiness may increase foraging demands making it

significantly more difficult to sustain the colony's energetic

requirements. It is thus important we consider how environmental

stressors set limits on bee foraging performance and how bees are able

to cope with such pressures.

For further details, how to apply and eligibility please go to:

https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/Public/SSCP%20DTP/DTP%20projects%=

202016/LS_Gill_2016.pdf

But in brief, the studentship will investigate what specific

behavioural mechanisms are being affected by stress factors associated

with agricultural practices and the knock-on effects thus has to colony

functioning and fitness. The research project will provide the PhD

student with a number of benefits: i) it will integrate a number of

critical interdisciplinary skills including controlled experiments and

modelling; ii) it crosses a number of scientific fields such as

behavioural ecology, evolutionary and theoretical biology; iii) the

research is of high impact and will result in quality publications as

well as results that can inform end users and policy makers; and iv)

the student will join a productive, diverse and social research group.

Imperial College is a world leading university; Life Science dept. was

placed top of the UK universities for research intensity in the

Research Excellence Framework, and placed 6th best dept. in the world

in the Times Higher Education 2015. The student will be based at

Silwood Park which has an internationally renowned community of

researchers, excellent facilities for the project, and the GCEE

initiative has invested significantly into ensuring world leading

research addressing important global issues.

Selected references:

Raine & Gill 2015 Nature N&V

Gill & Raine 2014 Functional Ecology (doi:10.1111/1365-2435.12292)

Bryden, Gill et al. 2013 Ecology Letters (doi:10.1111/ele.12188)

Gill et al. 2012 Nature (doi:10.1038/nature11585)

Pawar et al. 2012 Nature (doi:10.1038/nature11131)

Gill & Hammond 2011 Proc. Roy. Soc. B

Gill et al. 2009 Proc. Roy. Soc. B