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Assessing the impact of bee health on pollination service and crop yields

This project will compare and contrast the impact of pollination services provided by healthy and 'unhealthy' bee colonies on the quality and yield of oil seed rape and field beans grown over Spring/Summer 2021. This will be achieved through a series of cage experiments and lab assessments.

Department: Sustainable Land Management

Supervised by: Dr. Deepa Senapathi

The Placement Project

Insect pollinators form a key component of ensuring global food security through their significant contributions towards the pollinations of economically important food crops. The pollinators and the ecosystem services they provide are under threat from multiple factors such as climate change, and use change, agro-chemical use as well as pathogens and diseases. While the impact of individual drivers have been well documented, there are as yet significant knowledge gaps on the impact of interacting multiple drivers. This project aims to examine bees exposed to both pesticides and pathogens (hereafter referred to as ‘unhealthy’ bees) and quantify the impacts of differing levels of exposure at the colony level as well as the resulting impact on crop pollination services. This is part of an ongoing PhD project and the UROP student will specifically be involved in the crop assessments including the yield and quality of oil seed rape and field beans that are exposed to both healthy and ‘unhealthy’ bees in cage experiments.

Tasks

The student will initially assist a PhD student in setting up the overall experiment. They will then learn to follow lab and field protocols, be involved in independent data collection and also gain knowledge in basic data analysis and inference. The wider project takes place over the Spring/summer of 2021, so we see this placement as being part-time from May-August 2021 rather than an intensive 6 week period

Skills, knowledge and experience required

Ability to follow protocols; Capability to work independent in lab and field environments; basic knowledge of using Excel spreadsheets

Skills which will be developed during the placement

In addition to the skills gained by the tasks outlined above, the student will also gain experience of working as part of a field team, the ability to work independently on specific questions within a larger project including data collection and analyses and also learn how to present scientific findings to a non-specialist audience.

Place of Work

University of Reading – Whiteknights campus

Hours of Work

Up to 20 hours per week (flexible) depending on stage of the experiment

Approximate Start and End Dates (not fixed)

Tuesday 01 June 2021 - Tuesday 31 August 2021

How to Apply

The post will be advertised centrally on the UROP website between 22nd February and 9th April 2021. Students should submit their CV and Cover Letter (including a statement from the student explaining why they are interested in this project) directly to the Project Supervisor (click on supervisor name at the top of the page for email). Successful candidates will be invited for an interview.


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