The Inside Story: Exploring and exploiting the cabbage stem flea beetle endosymbiont microbiome as a potential means of crop protection. BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD studentship 2025 Entry Ref 5441 Ref: 5441

Supervisors

Lead Supervisor

Dr David Withall (Rothamsted Research)

Additional Supervisors

Professor Chris Bass (University of Exeter), Ian Clark (Rothamsted Research), Dr Bram Kuijper (University of Exeter), Dr Godfrey Apangu (Rothamsted Research)

Location:  St Luke's Campus, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon

Up to 34 fully-funded 4-year PhD studentships* available to start in September 2025, across a wide range of bioscience disciplines.

To view projects available, and how to apply, visit the SWBio DTP website.

* Subject to meeting eligibility requirements. 

The award:

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (SWBio DTP). 

About:

The BBSRC-funded SWBio DTP involves a partnership of world-renown universities, research institutes and industry, based mainly across the South West and Wales.

This partnership has established international, national and regional scientific networks, and widely recognised research excellence and facilities.

We aim to provide you with outstanding interdisciplinary bioscience research training, underpinned by transformative technologies.

Programme Overview:

You will be recruited to a broad, interdisciplinary project, supported by a multidisciplinary supervisory team, with many cross-institutional projects available. There are also opportunities to:

• apply your research in an industrial setting (DTP CASE studentships).

• undertake research jointly with our core and associate partners (Standard DTP studentships with an associate partner).

• work with other national/international researchers.

• undertake fieldwork.

Our structured training programme will ensure you are well equipped as a bioscience researcher, supporting careers into academia, industry and beyond. 

First year

We provide a broad awareness of the fundamental research approaches in life sciences and how they could be applied to real-life situations through:

• two rotation projects - both allied with but in different disciplinary areas related to the PhD project.
• three taught units - training in Statistics, Bioinformatics, coding, experimental design, innovation and understanding the impact of your research.

Of note: You will need to successfully complete the first year to progress into your second year of studies.  Also, if you are unable to continue your PhD, an MRes exit route is available upon successful completion of the first year.

Second to fourth years

The remaining years will be more like a conventional PhD, where you will focus on your PhD project.

Project Description

Cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB), Psylliodes chrysocephala, has rapidly emerged as the most important pest affecting oil seed rape, brassicas and vegetable crops, following the removal of neonicotinoid pesticides in 2013 and emerging widespread resistance to pyrethroids. Crop damage can result in over 20% yield loss, valued at over £120 million annually, and with low profit margins the area planted by UK farmers declined by more than 60% in 2020. This PhD project aims to explore a promising new approach to managing this economically important pest through exploring and exploiting the insect microbiome, with a specific focus on endosymbionts. 

There is growing evidence in the scientific literature and results from our own research activities on other agricultural insect pests that the host microbiome, including endosymbionts, play an important role in modulating physiological functions at all stages of their life cycle. This includes allowing their host to thrive on nutritionally unbalanced diets, protecting the host from predators/diseases, increasing resistance to insecticides, affecting host plant preferences, improving adaption to ecological niches, abiotic and biotic stresses and regulating mating cycles. By developing a better understanding of the composition and role of the microbiome, we will be able to develop new control strategies through manipulation of the host microbiome.

In this interdisciplinary PhD project, we propose to use an innovative combination of molecular biology, genomics, chemical ecology and bioinformatics alongside state-of-the-art equipment and methodologies (e.g. next-gen sequencing, analytical chemistry, computational models) to determine the composition and role of the CSFB microbiome. This will provide the foundation for developing novel targeted crop protection strategies based on manipulating the insect microbiome. To achieve this objective, this project aims to: 

1. Use 16S/18S rRNA and ITS nanopore amplicon sequencing approaches to characterise the composition and abundance of the microbiome, including endosymbionts, of wild collected populations of CSFB across all life cycle stages. We will use a range of microbiological approaches to isolate culturable members of the microbiome for further characterisation. 

2. Determine the role of the CSFB microbiome and endosymbionts, as a whole and individually, to adapt to ecological and environmental niches. We will use a combination of in vivo and in vitro behavioural/developmental bioassays (e.g. host plant preferences, fecundity, attraction/repellence), insecticide resistance bioassays and phenotypic characterisation. 

3. Evaluate the feasibility of manipulating the CSFB microbiome through feeding of commercially available antimicrobial compounds and previously isolated natural products with known ecologically relevant antimicrobial activity.

Our aim as the SWBio DTP is to support students from a range of backgrounds and circumstances. Where needed, we will work with you to take into consideration reasonable project adaptations (for example to support caring responsibilities, disabilities, other significant personal circumstances) as well as flexible working and part-time study requests, to enable greater access to a PhD.  All our supervisors support us with this aim, so please feel comfortable in discussing further with the listed PhD project supervisor to see what is feasible

Funding and eligibility

Information about funding and eligibility >>

A limited number of funded-studentships are available for international students.

Supporting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

We support inclusive and flexible work environments, and welcome applications from all backgrounds and communities.

Our SWBio DTP EDI statement >>

How we support our diverse student cohort >>

PhD study adjustments and support >>

DTP virtual support events

We have events available to help you with deciding on a bioscience PhD, and support with applications and interviews.

Further information >>

Entry requirements

Academic criteria

Applicants for a studentship must have obtained, or be about to obtain, a First or Upper Second Class UK Honours degree, or the equivalent qualifications gained outside the UK, in an appropriate area of science or technology. Applicants with a Lower Second Class degree will be considered if they also have a Master’s degree or have significant relevant research or non-academic experience.

In addition, due to the strong mathematical component of the taught course in the first year and the quantitative emphasis in our projects, quantitative/mathematical experience is needed.  This can be demonstrated through one or more of the following:

• Undertaking units as part of your degree that have a significant quantitative/mathematical component*
• Maths or Physics A-level (grade B and above)

*Significant mathematical component examples include; maths, statistics, bioinformatics.

Applicants must ensure they highlight their quantitative/mathematical background within their application and to upload any supporting evidence.

To support accessibility to PhD training opportunities, these studentships are only available to applicants that have not previously obtained or about to obtain a PhD degree (or equivalent).

Language requirements

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum English requirements for the programme.  Further information about these English requirements >>

We ask that the language requirements are met by 1st June at the latest, to allow adequate time to obtain any necessary documentation to allow you to study in the UK.  Further information about documentation required >>

How to apply

Apply now

Please be aware you will be asked to upload the following documents:

• CV
• Letter of application outlining your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake the project.  Please indicate your preferred project choice if applying for multiple BBSRC SWBio DTP projects.
• Personal Statement
• Transcript(s) giving full details of subjects studied and grades/marks obtained.  This should be an interim transcript if you are still studying.
• Two academic referees - see information below about references.
• If you are not a national of a majority English-speaking country you will need to submit evidence of your proficiency in English (see entry requirements above)

The closing date for applications is midnight on Monday, 11 December 2024. 

Interviews will be held between 3-14 February 2025.

Reference Information

You will be asked to submit two references as part of the application process.  If you are not able to upload  your reference documents with your application please ensure you provide details of your referees.  If you provide contact details of referees only, we will not expect receipt of references until after the shortlisting stage. Your referees should not be from the prospective supervisory team.

If you are shortlisted for interview, please ensure that your two academic referees email their references to pgrapplicants@exeter.ac.uk, 7 days prior to the interview dates.  Please note that we will not be contacting referees to request references, you must arrange for them to be submitted to us by the deadline.

References should be submitted by your referees to us directly in the form of a letter. Referees must email their references to us from their institutional email accounts. We cannot accept references from personal/private email accounts, unless it is a scanned document on institutional headed paper and signed by the referee.

If you have any general enquiries about the application process please email pgrapplicants@exeter.ac.uk.

Project-specific queries should be directed to the primary supervisor.

Selection Process:

Information relating to the selection process can be found via the following link https://www.swbio.ac.uk/programme/selection-process/
Please note that nomination by a project supervisor therefore does not guarantee the award of a studentship.

Data Protection

During the application process, the University may need to make certain disclosures of your personal data to third parties to be able to administer your application, carry out interviews and select candidates.  These are not limited to, but may include disclosures to:

•     the selection panel and/or management board or equivalent of the relevant programme,
      which is likely to include staff from one or more other HEIs.
• administrative staff at one or more other HEIs participating in the relevant programme.

Such disclosures will always be kept to the minimum amount of personal data required for the specific purpose. Your sensitive personal data (relating to disability and race/ethnicity) will not be disclosed without your explicit consent.

Summary