| Level: | PhD |
| Tuition: | Full coverage |
| Deadline: | Jan 22, 2025 |
| Duration max: | 99 months |
Description
We are seeking an enthusiastic student with passion for developmental biology and evolution to investigate how African butterflies tune their morphology, behaviour and life cycle to wet and dry seasons. This adaptation—‘phenotypic plasticity’—is widespread, as almost all environments show variability, for instance between seasons. Notable examples include seasonal wing morphs in butterflies, wing dimorphism in aphids, and migratory morphs in locusts.
While we know a great deal about why plasticity is important in nature, we know much less about how plastic responses are accomplished during development. What are the genes and pathways that sense the environment and produce a different phenotype when the environment changes? How do these genes interact in gene regulatory networks? How have these networks evolved when species invade new habitats, or are faced with environmental change? How does plasticity affect future adaptation, for instance to climate change? African Bicyclus butterflies are a great system to study these questions. Species have repeatedly evolved plasticity upon invasions of savannahs from forests, allowing comparative analyses at the phenotypic, developmental and genomic level.
The project can be tailored to your specific interests, but would likely involve a broad range of techniques. This includes rearing butterflies in the lab, developmental and genetic experiments, and computational analyses of whole-genome DNA sequences (genomics, coding). The project benefits from established lab populations, promising preliminary data, and new genomic resources.
Available for
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Antarctica
- Algeria
- American Samoa
- Andorra
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Azerbaijan
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Armenia
- Barbados
- Belgium
- Bermuda
- Bhutan
- Bolivia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Bouvet Island
- Brazil
- Belize
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Solomon Islands
- Virgin Islands, British
- Brunei Darussalam
- Bulgaria
- Myanmar
- Burundi
- Belarus
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Canada
- Cape Verde
- Cayman Islands
- Central African Republic
- Sri Lanka
- Chad
- Chile
- China
- Taiwan
- Christmas Island
- Cocos Islands
- Colombia
- Comoros
- Mayotte
- Congo
- Congo
- Cook Islands
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- Cuba
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Benin
- Denmark
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Equatorial Guinea
- Ethiopia
- Eritrea
- Estonia
- Faroe Islands
- Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Fiji
- Finland
- Eland Islands
- France
- French Guiana
- French Polynesia
- French Southern Territories
- Djibouti
- Gabon
- Georgia
- Gambia
- Palestine
- Germany
- Ghana
- Gibraltar
- Kiribati
- Greece
- Greenland
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guam
- Guatemala
- Guinea
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Vatican
- Honduras
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Cote d'Ivoire
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Jordan
- Kenya
- North Korea
- South Korea
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Latvia
- Liberia
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macao
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mali
- Malta
- Martinique
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mexico
- Midway Islands
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Moldova
- Montenegro
- Montserrat
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Oman
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- Curacao
- Aruba
- Sint-Maarten
- Bonaire, Sint-Estatius and Saba
- New Caledonia
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Norway
- Northern Mariana Islands
- United States Minor Outlying Islands
- Micronesia
- Marshall Islands
- Palau
- Pakistan
- Panama
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines
- Pitcairn
- Poland
- Portugal
- Guinea-Bissau
- Timor-Leste
- Puerto Rico
- Qatar
- Reunion
- Romania
- Russian Federation
- Rwanda
- Saint Barthelemy
- Saint Helena
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Anguilla
- Saint Lucia
- St. Maarten
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- San Marino
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Vietnam
- Slovenia
- Somalia
- South Africa
- Zimbabwe
- Spain
- Southern Sudan
- Sudan
- Western Sahara
- Suriname
- Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
- Swaziland
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Syrian Arab Republic
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Togo
- Tokelau
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- United Arab Emirates
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- Tuvalu
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- North Macedonia
- Egypt
- United Kingdom
- Guernsey
- Jersey
- Isle of Man
- Tanzania, United Republic of
- United States
- Virgin Islands, U.S.
- Burkina Faso
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
- Venezuela
- Wallis and Futuna
- Samoa
- Yemen
- Zambia
- South Ossetia
- Kosovo
- Vanuatu
- Aland Islands
- French Southern and Antarctic Lands
Disciplines
- Life Sciences, Medicine & Health
Benefits
Studentships are funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) for 4 years. Funding will cover tuition fees at the UK rate only, a Research Training and Support Grant (RTSG) and stipend. We aim to support the most outstanding applicants from outside the UK and are able to offer a limited number of bursaries that will enable full studentships to be awarded to international applicants. These full studentships will only be awarded to exceptional quality candidates, due to the competitive nature of this scheme.
Requirements
Open to students worldwide
Targets
Currency
EUR
GBP
KZT
INR
RUB