Quantifying dispersal ability and how organisms navigate through the environment is an\u00a0essential step required to predict how individual species will cope with land use changes.\u00a0There is a growing desire to ensure that intensive land use practices are designed in a\u00a0way that maintains stable populations of pollinators. While the field of movement ecology\u00a0has been revolutionised by the advent of ever-lighter GPS tracking devices, smaller\u00a0animals such as pollinating insects have yet to benefit from this technological revolution.\u00a0Working under the supervision of collaborators from Rothamsted Research, Bangor\u00a0University and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) this PhD program aims to\u00a0overcome the shortfall in knowledge about pollinator dispersal. Firstly, the student shall\u00a0use the flight mill system at Rothamsted Research to infer the flight abilities of a range of\u00a0solitary bees, bumblebees and honeybees during different phases of their lifecycle. Then,\u00a0with the advent of a novel lightweight radio transponder tracking system developed by Dr\u00a0Paul Cross\u2019 team at Bangor University, the student shall use a UAV to follow bumblebee\u00a0queens over long distances in the field during the critical dispersal phase of their life\u00a0cycle. The student will be one of the first researchers to use this innovative new tracking\u00a0system. The PhD candidate will be expected to present their research at conferences and\u00a0workshops, as well as publish at least one journal article per year. They shall be provided\u00a0expert training in experimental design, analysis and publishing from their main\u00a0supervisors at Rothamsted Research and Bangor University, as well as their collaborators\u00a0at QMUL. The student will undertake a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certified UAV pilot\u00a0licencing course, allowing them to pilot UAVs commercially in the UK. The skillsets\u00a0obtained during this ground-breaking PhD position will prepare the candidate for a career\u00a0in movement ecology.<\/p>\n
Applicants should hold a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in\u00a0subjects such as Ecology, Biology, Environmental Science, and Agriculture.<\/p>\n
For enquiries, please email Dr. Paul Cross (paul.cross@bangor.ac.uk<\/a>) or Dr Andy\u00a0Reynolds (andy.reynolds@rothamsted.ac.uk<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quantifying dispersal ability and how organisms navigate through the environment is an\u00a0essential step required to predict how individual species will cope with land use changes.\u00a0There is a growing desire to ensure that intensive land use practices are designed in a\u00a0way that maintains stable populations of pollinators. While the field of movement ecology\u00a0has been revolutionised by… Read More »Dispersal strategies and space use in pollinating bees<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":5844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-5843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-51","tag-rothamsted"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/files\/2017\/10\/Andy-Reynolds-Image-400x400px.jpg?fit=400%2C400","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kFzn-1wf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5845,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions\/5845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/envision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}