Carrie Alderley
University of York
Lead Supervisor: Dr Ville Friman
Project Title: The eco-evolutionary consequences of biofumigation in the rhizosphere bacterial communities
Research Interests: My PhD project investigates the eco-evolutionary consequences of an environmentally friendly crop protection technique, biofumigation, on the rhizosphere bacterial communities. This project will focus on the Ralstonia solanacearum bacterial pathogen that causes bacterial wilt disease in potatoes, as well as many other important crops.
Bryony Allen
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Prof Andy Fenton
Project Title: From individual behaviour to population-level transmission: bridging disease ecology scales with the amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
Research Interests: I am interested in the link between individuals’ social behaviour and their role in mixed-species communities. Currently, I am researching the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis, exploring which host behaviours drive the complex disease dynamics of this amphibian-Bd system, with the aim of untangling how behaviour-modified contact rates influence pathogen transmission (between susceptible and infected hosts) in a multi-host community.
Callum Duffield
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Prof Paula Stockley
Sean Gilgannon
University of Sheffield
Lead Supervisor: Dr Darrel Swift
Jordan Jones
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Prof Greg Hurst
Research Interests: My research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of parasitic wasp resistance. More specifically, the interplay of different defensive mechanisms – self-medication with ethanol, symbiont-mediated protection and classic immune defences. How do these mechanisms interact, both in terms of individual defence and the evolutionary ecology of resistance?
Francesca Dawson Pell
fsedawsonpell1@sheffield.ac.uk
University of Sheffield
Lead Supervisor: Prof Ben Hatchwell
Research Interests: My research focuses on the social and genetic structure of a free-living population of the monk parakeet, Myiopsitta monachus, an invasive species that has spread worldwide through escapes from the pet trade. I am combining detailed field observations with molecular genetic techniques to address questions of broad ecological and evolutionary interest.
Twitter: @FrancescaDP12
Callum Scott
University of York
Lead Supervisor: Dr Penny Spikins
Project Title: Environmental Change and the Emergence of Human Cognitive Variation
Research Interests: My research explores the effect personality and cognitive differences may have had upon human evolution. Our species’ psychological diversity is one of our most unique features, causing large differences in life history between individuals. Nevertheless, the impact this diversity may have had upon specific moments in our evolutionary history is rarely discussed. My research therefore explores whether psychological diversity may have provided groups with advantages that enabled them to colonize new and changing environments. In particular, I use agent based modelling (computer simulation) to explore how variation in extraversion may have impacted human dispersal out of Africa.
Thomas Sinclair
University of Sheffield
Lead Supervisor: Prof Lorraine Maltby
Christopher Taylor
University of Sheffield
Lead Supervisor: Dr Gareth Phoenix
Project Title: Grassland Carbon and Climate Change: will soil nutrients limit carbon uptake in a high CO2 future?
Evelyn Taylor-Cox
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Dr Ilik Saccheri
Research Interests: I am interested in the mechanisms underpinning species’ responses to climate change and the evolutionary and ecological limits to adaptation. My research specifically looks into the genetic and demographic processes of range expansion with climate change and habitat fragmentation, using two species of British Lepidoptera.
Alice Walker
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Prof Kate Parr
Project Title: The role of ants in structuring savanna ecosystems
Research Interests: My research aims to untangle the various roles ants play in the structuring and functioning of savanna ecosystems. Ants are widely known to play major roles in mediating ecosystem functions, but little is known about their importance in savanna ecosystems, which is what my project aims to address. My study site is an area of lowveld savanna in South Africa, and my primary goals are to: quantify the importance of ants in scavenging resources; determine how ants affect decomposition via top-down control of termite communities; assess the role of ants in structuring invertebrate communities; assess the effect of ants on invertebrate-mediated herbivory.
Benjamin Walsh
University of Liverpool
Lead Supervisor: Dr Thomas Price
Project Title: Will the impact of juvenile temperatures on fertility alter how species respond to climate change?
Research Interests: My research focuses on the impact of climate change on fertility. When exposed for high temperatures, many organisms lose the ability to produce offspring. However, we do not know how widespread this phenomenon is, and how this will affect populations. Further, little is known on how thermal stress during early life-history stages affects adult fertility later in life. I am using cross-species experiments to examine how thermal stress during the pupal stage affects the fertility of fruit flies. I am also using mathematical modelling to predict how individual losses to fertility may affect population dynamics.
Nathan White
University of Sheffield
Lead Supervisor: Prof Roger Butlin
Research Interests: My research concerns speciation and how the dimensionality of selection (the number of divergent selection pressures) might affect patterns of local adaptation, assortative mating and genomic differentiation. I am using an experimental evolution approach with evolve & re-sequence, and work with the monogonont rotifer, Brachionus plicatilis.
Sophie Williams
University of York
Lead Supervisor: Prof Roland Gehrels
Project Title: Historical sea-level changes in Australia: Testing the Arctic Ice Melt Hypothesis
Research Interests: Sophie uses microfossils (benthic foraminifera) preserved within sediment cores to reconstruct sea-level change in Australia. Sophie’s project seeks to reconstruct sea level over the last ca. 500 years with a specific focus on sea-level change over the 19th and 20th century. To do this, Sophie uses a combination of multiple dating approaches (14C, radionuclide, stable lead isotopes and geochemical proxies) and statistical modelling. Sophie’s PhD will contribute a new regional training set of modern foraminifera from SE Australia as well as new sea-level reconstructions for the area.
Twitter: @sophielwill_
WordPress: https://wordpress.com/view/sophielaurenwilliams.wordpress.com
Frederick Wu
University of York / Centre for Ecology an Hyrdology (CEH)
Lead Supervisor: Dr Niall McNamara
accedtp.ac.uk 