BBSRC White Rose DTP Studentship - Molecular and metabolic mechanisms linking crop pollination and defence against pests and pathogens.

Plants use an array of secondary metabolites to defend against attack by pests and pathogens. Following attack, sophisticated hormonal signaling pathways regulate the production of these metabolites, allowing plants to modulate levels of leaf toxins as well as volatile compounds that repel pests. These induced responses are generally considered to be beneficial to plants. However, insect attack can also cause upregulation of defences in flowers, potentially disrupting pollination. Co-occurrence of secondary metabolites in leaves and flowers presents a conflict for plants, which must maintain effective, repellent defences while also attracting insect pollinators. The goal of this project is to unpick the ecological, metabolic and molecular mechanisms of this conflict in order to understand and potentially improve pollination.

The project focuses on wild and cultivated tomato species, which exhibit striking variation in their defences, and their bumblebee pollinators. You will design and run experiments to characterize induced flower responses to herbivores and pathogens, using state-of-the-art metabolomics platforms, and you will use tissue-specific transcriptomics to identify genes underlying these responses. There is also the opportunity to use cutting-edge gene-editing approaches (CRISPR-Cas9) to test the real-world ecological function of candidate loci. There is scope for tailoring the project based on the successful applicant’s interests.

This project will be based at the University of Sheffield, which has world-class facilities for plant metabolomics and genomics; you will be part of a diverse research group studying plant chemical ecology and plant-animal interactions (Campbell Lab), as well as groups studying molecular plant signaling (Ton Lab) and molecular genetics (Smith Lab). You will thereby have the chance to gain multidisciplinary training that will equip you to pursue a wide range of careers in academia or with organisations focused on plant health or crop improvement. We welcome applications from students with diverse backgrounds to contribute to our research.

Key Words: Plant immunity, pollination, crop production, CRISPR-Cas9