Opportunities

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Funded PhD (start 2025) - Assessing the impact of parasitic bees and extreme weather events on bee colonies and Indigenous beekeeping livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon

Stingless bees (Meliponini) are essential pollinators in tropical ecosystems, contributing to the pollination of around 50% of flowering plants and thus supporting ecosystem health. They are also culturally and economically significant to many indigenous communities in the tropics, producing honey, medicinal products, and pollinating important crops.

These bees also hold spiritual importance, as seen in Indigenous Maijuna culture, where they form part of the creation narrative and are represented in song and dance during traditional harvest festivals.

However, stingless bees face multiple threats that endanger both their survival and the livelihoods of communities dependent on them. Key biological threats include parasitic robber bees, which invade and often destroy colonies, and extreme weather events caused by climate change. Despite the clear damage from these factors, the extent of their impact on stingless bee populations and the socio-economic effects on smallholder beekeepers remain poorly understood.

This project aims to investigate the impacts of natural and anthropogenic threats on bee colonies and the economic consequences for indigenous beekeeping livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon

Watch this video to get an impression of the study region, the indigenous Maijuna, and stingless beekeepig:

Funded PhD (start 2025) - Understanding how international food trade networks influence gastrointestinal disease outbreaks in the UK

In addition to their harmful effects on animal health, zoonotic foodborne pathogens infect around 2.4 million people in the UK each year, resulting in an annual economic burden of £9.1 billion. This infection rate is expected to rise due to growing demand for animal-based products and fresh produce, both of which can act as vectors for gastrointestinal (GI) pathogens. Despite this, there is a significant gap in our understanding of how international trade networks contribute to the spread of GI diseases and their role in disease outbreaks.

This project aims to investigate how global food trade networks influence the transmission of gastrointestinal diseases.

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Funded PhD (start 2025) - Grazing and rewilding: how do they affect biodiversity, carbon cycling and greenhouse gas emissions?

Do you want to help us to understand how grazing and rewilding can provide better ecosystem services?

We are facing severe consequences due to climate change and biodiversity loss. Consequently, the UK has committed to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) target for 2050 and has implemented other measures to boost on-farm biodiversity (e.g. stablishing farmers financial incentives to include rewilding areas within their properties). While livestock can cause a negative impact on GHGe, soil degradation and biodiversity loss, these effects are largely influenced by grazing management practices.

For example, nature-based grazing practices, such as inclusion of multy-species pastures, silvopasture systems (integration of trees and pasture) and balanced stocking densities, aim to implement soil conservation strategies that can revert some of the negative carbon and biodiversity consequences of conventional livestock farming. However, grazing per se is complex and involves adding different processes to the agroecosystem, such as herbage removal, vegetative species selection, poaching and addition of excreta.

These processes modulate above and below ground macro and micro fauna and their activity which, ultimately, affects soil health (positive or negative), carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen cycling, which in turn drives the sequestration or loss of carbon from soil systems. Hydrogen is commonly taken up by soils which is commonly and it has called increasing attention as it is an indirect climate force linked to methane residence time in the atmosphere. Therefore, the removal of grazing animals for rewilding purposes directly influences these processes, but the details are poorly understood.

This PhD project aims to assess how exclusion of grazing animals from rewilding areas effects soil health characteristics (carbon cycle, soil structure, compaction and greenhouse gas emissions) and above and belowground biodiversity.