This fully funded, 4-year PhD project is part of a competition funded by the BBSRC EASTBIO Doctoral Training Partnership.
The spread of alien, invasive non-native species has major environmental, economic and health impacts. Invasive species are one of the biggest causes of global biodiversity loss, represent a major threat to food security and livelihoods, and are potent vectors promoting the emergence and spread of wildlife, livestock and human diseases. The control and management of invasive species is now recognised as a major societal priority challenge.
An enduring puzzle has been how to explain why invasive species are so biologically successful given they undergo a population bottleneck during colonisation that should erode genetic diversity and compromise their fitness and capacity to spread. There is increasing recognition of the role that transposable elements (TE) may play in providing rapid genomic diversity that drives adaptive radiation following colonisation. TE, or “jumping genes”, are parasitic mobile genetic elements that propagate through a host genome by copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste mechanisms. This transposition can lead to evolutionary novelty by disrupting host coding sequences or gene regulation, and inducing structural variation such as gene duplications, inversions and translocations that may impact fitness. TE activity is responsive and susceptible to environmental change and stress, and thus the process of colonisation of a new niche, in itself, may stimulate TE proliferation.
This project will examine the evolutionary novelty generated by TE in the invasive arthropod model Arcitalitrus dorrieni, which invaded the UK in the 1980s from its native range in eastern Australia. What is exceptional about this invasive species is that the evolutionary novelty afforded by invasion is capable of coping with a switch from tropical to temperate climate and also to exploit a terrestrial environmental niche not utilised by any other species within the rest of the entire taxonomic order.
The student will receive extensive training and gain comprehensive experience in a range of state-of-the-art ‘omics technologies and bioinformatics analyses to: 1) characterise the TE families found across the Arctitalitrus genome; 2) associate TE with genes and functional pathways that explain adaptation to novel environmental conditions; 3) use a comparative genomics approach between the native and non-native range and across closely related non-invasive taxa to define the genetic basis of invasiveness in this species.
The project provides an outstanding opportunity to combine lab and fieldwork to address a classical issue in evolutionary biology, and also work in an applied context to provide new tools to monitor and manage the emergence and spread of invasive species.
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ELIGIBILITY:
- Applicants should hold a minimum of a 2:1 UK Honours degree (or international equivalent) in a relevant subject. Those with a 2:2 UK Honours degree (or international equivalent) may be considered, provided they have (or are expected to achieve) a Distinction or Commendation at master’s level.
- All students must meet the eligibility criteria as outlined in the UKRI guidance on UK, EU and international candidates. This guidance should be read in conjunction with the UKRI Training Grant Terms and Conditions, esp. TGC 5.2 & Annex B.
- It may be possible to undertake this project part-time, in discussion with the lead supervisor, however, please note that part-time study is unavailable to students who require a Student Visa to study within the UK.
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APPLICATION PROCEUDRE:
- Please visit this page for full application information: How to apply | eastbio (eastscotbiodtp.ac.uk)
- Please send your completed EASTBIO application form, along with academic transcripts to Alison Innes at: [Email Address Removed]
- Two references should be provided by the deadline using the EASTBIO reference form. References should be sent to [Email Address Removed]
- Unfortunately, due to workload constraints, we cannot consider incomplete applications.
- CV's submitted directly through a FindAPhD enquiry WILL NOT be considered.
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