Application details: https://www.findaphd.com/search/projectDetails.aspx?PJID=94048&LID=4663
Investment
in cognitive traits, such as learning and memory, is expected to yield
fitness benefits through better decision-making, producing behavior that
is fine-tuned to the local environment. Yet the fact that animals vary
in their cognitive abilities, both between
and within species, suggests that such investment comes at a
significant cost. We currently understand little about what these costs
are, because it is difficult to manipulate cognitive abilities, and thus
any relationship with other traits is by nature correlational.
In this project, we will capitalize upon recent developments in insect
cognitive neuroscience to overcome this problem, using a uniquely
tractable experimental system (the bumblebee
Bombus terrestris). We will focus upon (1) metabolic
costs of investment in cognition (2) potential evolutionary trade-offs
with immune function (3) impacts on life-history variables. In the
latter stages of the project, there will be the opportunity
for the student to develop further research questions according to
their interests, which may include (but are not limited to) the use of
transcriptomics to understand the genomic basis for cognitive
investment.
The successful applicant will be based at Royal Holloway University of London in the research group of Dr. Elli Leadbeater (http://ellileadbeater.wixsite.com/insectcognition),
and will be co-supervised by Dr. Steve Portugal at Royal Holloway and
Samraat Pawar at our DTP partnership institution, Imperial College. The
project will capitalize upon excellent ERC-funded social insect research
facilities at Royal Holloway, including indoor
and outdoor apiaries, bee rearing rooms and a dedicated cognition
laboratory. The student will join a large group of researchers
interested in social insect behaviour within our department, which
provides an exceptionally stimuluating and collaborative environment
for the proposed research. Experimental work will involve
laboratory-based studies during both the summer and the winter months,
with the potential for campus-based fieldwork during the summer months
according to the student’s interests. Pre-application informal
enquiries are strongly encouraged. Please direct these to Elli
Leadbeater (Elli.Leadbeater@rhul.ac.uk).