Supervisor: Prof Elli Leadbeater
About the Project
The loss of floral forage resources that has resulted from land-use change within the last century is considered to be one of the key threats to social bees in temperate landscapes. Conservation efforts seek to mitigate these impacts by encouraging diversity and continuity of forage within agricultural landscapes, but elucidating when and where “pinch points” occur will be key to the success of such schemes. In this large-scale field project, we will use a unique behavioural tool- honeybee dance decoding- to understand where human-altered landscapes present bottlenecks of forage availability for social bees. Specifically, we will focus on the constraints imposed by the need to find pollen- the key source of protein that is fed to developing bee brood.
Honeybees are unique in communicating the locations of the forage resources that they find to nestmates, and by decoding these dances researchers can build maps of both forage availability and quality from the perspective of a generalist pollinator. We will combine dance-decoding with laboratory work and meta-analysis to understand how and why pollen is limited, how pollen foraging shapes insecticide exposure, and what mitigation methods could address both problems. The project will involve extensive summer fieldwork in the UK, and represents a unique opportunity to apply a behavioural tool to address a real-world conservation problem with potential outcomes for policy recommendations. We seek a candidate with a strong research background in practical field ecology, and a keen interest in both Animal Behaviour and Social Insects. You should have (or expect to attain) a BSc at 2:1 level or higher in a related discipline (Ecology, Zoology or similar). The research project will be supervised by Professor Elli Leadbeater, and based at Royal Holloway University of London. Further information on the project aims, approach and methods are available by contacting elli.leadbeater@rhul.ac.uk. Interested applicants are strongly encouraged to get in touch prior to applying. Our research group’s website is here: https://ellileadbeater.wixsite.com/insectcognition.
For further information and to apply follow link to https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/applying/postgraduate/how-to-apply/