PhD Studentship - Bee Behaviour and Pollination Services across Structurally Diverse Floral Habitats

The diversity of bee populations is essential for sustaining the richness of plant communities. Yet little is known about how species-specific differences in behaviour influence pollination networks and ecosystem services. A key unresolved question is how bees move in structurally complex landscapes containing vertical barriers such as hedgerows which increase travel costs. Understanding how bees balance these costs, and how this shapes resource partitioning among pollinators, is crucial for predicting pollination services and ecosystem resilience. The rural landscapes of Devon provide an ideal setting for this research.

Devon hedges are biodiverse microhabitats but change the distribution of floral resources available to pollinators. By integrating behavioural observations, environmental data, and quantitative models, the project will identify how bees navigate and forage in heterogeneous landscapes, providing evidence-based guidance for conserving hedgerows and pollination services, and supporting rewilding and sustainable land-management strategies.

The project offers exciting opportunities to test how movement strategies result in species-specific trade-offs between navigation efficiency and pollination outcomes. Specific hypotheses will be developed collaboratively, goals set out together, whilst also considering how research directions and skills development align with the candidate’s background, interests and career ambitions. Training in field, experimental and modelling techniques is enhanced by state-of-the-art use of remote-sensing and spectral image analysis for habitat measurements, as well as newly developed tracking methods to record movement trajectories of forager bees. The team of GW4+ supervisors has previously developed and successfully collaborated, also jointly supervised research students, building on their complementary expertise in behaviour, ecology, remote sensing, computational and modelling work.

Their ongoing research collaborations with current project partners in Sheffield and Sussex offer the student access to unique development opportunities. This project equips the student with highly transferable quantitative, analytical, and field-based skills that are sought after in both academic research and the environmental, conservation, and land-management sectors.

Funding

For eligible students the studentship will cover home tuition fees plus an annual tax-free stipend.

Advert information