YES-27-B-01 Scent of Survival: Is Disrupted Communication Contributing to Insect Decline?
How do insects respond when environmental change disrupts the chemical signals that govern their lives?
Insects live in a world of scent. Chemical signals help them find mates, recognise rivals, coordinate reproduction and, in social species such as ants and bees, organise entire societies. From a solitary bee searching for a partner to thousands of bees coordinating foraging and brood care, chemical communication underpins some of the most important interactions in insect life.
Insects, including pollinators, are facing unprecedented environmental change. Habitat loss, climate warming and exposure to agricultural chemicals are reshaping ecosystems, contributing to widespread declines in insect abundance and diversity, with important implications for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and food security. We know that these stressors can affect insect survival, behaviour and reproduction, but we know remarkably little about whether they also interfere with the chemical messages insects depend upon. This raises an urgent and largely unexplored question: could environmental stressors, including pesticides, contribute to insect decline by disrupting the chemical signals insects depend upon? and could these hidden effects help explain why some insect populations and communities are less resilient to environmental change than others?
Pesticides provide a powerful system in which to address this question. Field-realistic pesticide exposure can alter insect foraging, learning and reproduction, many of the same behaviours regulated by chemical communication. If pesticides, or other environmental contaminants, alter how pheromones are produced, detected or acted upon, their consequences could extend far beyond conventional measures of toxicity, affecting mating success and reproduction as well as colony organisation in eusocial species and ultimately population resilience.
This PhD will take you from observing insects in the field to uncovering the chemical and molecular mechanisms that shape their behaviour. Combining field ecology with behavioural experiments and molecular biology, you will investigate how environmental conditions shape insect communication across contrasting social systems, from solitary bees to bumblebee and ant societies.
Research questions
- How do chemical signals regulate reproduction, behaviour and social organisation across different levels of insect sociality?
- Does field-realistic pesticide exposure disrupt the production, detection or behavioural effects of these signals?
- Can disruption of chemical communication help explain variation in insect reproductive success and resilience under environmental stress?
Approach
There is flexibility to shape the project around your interests, whether in chemical ecology, animal behaviour, molecular biology or field ecology. Field surveys at UK sites could examine how chemical signals, behaviour and reproduction vary across contrasting environments, including agricultural landscapes and pesticide-exposure gradients. These studies could be complemented by field and semi-field experiments investigating whether disruption of chemical communication affects pollination services.
Established protocols will identify candidate pheromones and determine how they vary among individuals, populations and environments. Behavioural assays will test their roles in mating, reproduction and social organisation, while molecular approaches, including RNA-seq and RT-qPCR, could explore interactions between environmental stress and chemical signalling.
Using a combination of these techniques you will uncover how environmental change affects the hidden chemical conversations that underpin insect reproduction and social life. The project will provide new insights into the mechanisms shaping insect resilience and may reveal overlooked pathways through which environmental stress affects biodiversity, pollination services and food security.
Skills and Training
The student will have a background in biological sciences (e.g. Biology, Ecology, Genetics, Zoology) and will have an appetite for applying molecular techniques to ecological problems.
The student will join a vibrant research environment and will receive multidisciplinary training in chemical ecology, behavioural ecology, and molecular biology. There will be opportunities for laboratory-based studies and some field work (likely UK focussed) and will benefit from broader training in transferable skills.
Further Reading
Bartling, M.-T.; Brandt, A.; Hollert, H.; Vilcinskas, A. Current Insights into Sublethal Effects of Pesticides on Insects. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25, 6007. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25116007
R. A. Knapp, V. C. Norman, J. L. Rouse, E. J. Duncan, Environmentally Responsive Reproduction: Neuroendocrine Signalling and the Evolution of Eusociality. Current Opinion in Insect Science, (2022) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2022.100951