BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD studentship: Bees, bugs and antibiotics – the interactions of agricultural and veterinary antibiotics

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (SWBio DTP). The SWBio DTP is a BBSRC-funded PhD training programme in the biosciences, delivered by a consortium comprising the Universities of Bristol (lead), Bath, Cardiff and Exeter and Rothamsted Research. The SWBio DTP projects are designed to provide outstanding interdisciplinary training in a range of topics in Agriculture & Food Security and world-class Bioscience, underpinned by training in mathematics and complexity science. Each project will be supervised by an interdisciplinary team of academic staff and will follow a structured training 4-year PhD model.

Up to 4 fully-funded studentships at the University of Exeter are being offered to start in September 2017. The studentships will provide funding for a stipend (currently £14,296 per annum for 2016-17), research costs and UK/EU tuition fees at Research Council UK rates for 48 months (4 years) for full-time students, pro-rata for part-time students.

Academic Supervisors:

Main supervisor: Dr. Lena Wilfert, University of Exeter
Co-supervisors: Dr. Will Gaze, University of Exeter; Prof. Ed Feil, University of Bath; Dr. TJ McKinley, Unviersity of Exeter; Prof. Angus Buckling, Univeristy of Exeter

Project Description:

The pollination services provided by bumblebees and honeybees are crucial for agricultural sustainability. In recent years, it has become clear that the gut microbiome plays a crucial role in bee health. In fact, the resistance against Critihidia bombi, a key parasite of bumblebees, and the strong genotype-genotype interactions with its host are predominantly explained by the gut biome rather than by the host itself (Koch et al Ecology Letters 2012, Wilfert et al. Molecular Ecology 2007). Antibiotics can disrupt this interaction and cause fitness loss (Koch et al. PNAS 2011). Environmental exposure to antibiotics is a potentially serious problem in bees: antibiotic sprays are used while crops are in flower and prophylactic antibiotic treatment of honeybees is widespread in North America, which has led to the evolution of AMR. Studying the interactions of pollinators, pathogens and antibiotics is thus crucial for a sustainable future.
In this PhD, you will be able to study fundamental evolutionary ecology, for example testing the effect of stress on community stability, while directly addressing questions around pollinator health. You will receive training in experimental ecology and microbiology, bioinformatics and mathematical modelling.

Please visit http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=2318 for further details about the project and application.