mardi 4 septembre 2018

PhD position on honey bee health

Nutritional modulation of pesticide effects
UR 406 Abeilles & Environnement, INRA Avignon, France
Pollinators  face  multiple  threats  including  agrochemicals,  pathogens,  habitat  loss  and  climate  change.  A major  new  project  PoshBee  (Pan-European  Assessment,  Monitoring  and  Mitigation  of  Stressors  on  the Health of Bees) aims to understand the impacts of these multiple pressures on a range of bee species and develop novel tools to help reduce risks and negative impacts.
One  focus  of  this  EU-project  is  to  improve  our  understanding  of  the  combined  effects  of  pesticides  and nutrition on the health of honeybees, bumblebees and solitary bees. The PhD  candidate  will  be part of the PoshBee project and,  together with European partners,  will conduct semi-field and laboratory research to contribute to this topic.
More  specifically,  the  PhD  candidate  will  analyze  the  nutritional  quality  of  specific  floral  pollens  and investigate  factors  that  may  influence  their  nutritional  quality,  ii)  determine  how  pollen  nutrition modulates pesticide effects in honey bees and which nutritional factors are involved in this modulation, iii) contribute  to  synthetize  the  results  obtained  across  a  range  of  species.  The  goal  will  be  to  better understand how the nutritional background determines how bees deal with toxic molecules (toxicokinetics) and  how  toxic  molecules affect  bees  (toxicodynamics).  Research  of  the PhD  student  will  involve  lab  and field-based  experiments,  as  well  as  physiological  and  behavioral  analysis.  The  PhD  student  will  join  the “Bees and Environment” research unit  (INRA Avignon), which develop  a  wide range of research programs that are targeted to the study of honeybee and wild bee populations, in the context of sustainable farming and  food  security.  The  activity  of  the  unit  is  organized  around  understanding  the  factors  that  are responsible for honeybee colony losses and the worldwide decline in wild bee populations, and the impact of this decline on biodiversity and crop production.
Funding
The PhD student will be funded for 3 years
We aim for a start date in January/February 2019.
Candidate profile
  Master’s  degree  in  Biology/Ecology/Ecotoxicology  and  ideally expertise  in  ecotoxicology  and/or  insect biology and/or bee pollinators
  Experience in conducting laboratory or semi-field experiments 
  Strong background in statistical analysis
  Good communication and writing skills (English)
  The successful candidate will have excellent team-working
  The candidate should not have known allergies to bee stings
Supervisors
Cédric Alaux      Yves Le Conte
cedric.alaux@inra.fr    yves.le-conte@inra.fr
Tel : +33 (0)4 32 72 26 19    Tel : +33 (0)4 32 72 26 81
INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et Environnement
Site Agroparc, CS 40509
84914 Avignon Cedex 9
France
How to apply
The application should include a detailed CV, a one-page cover letter (research interest) and contact details of 2 scientific references in a single pdf file. The document should be sent by email to Cédric Alaux and Yves
Le Conte before October 5th, 2018. Selected candidates will then be interviewed.