A 3.5 year project funded by the Pollinator Initiative. This project on insect pollinators will answer three questions: where exactly is the pollinator biodiversity in the UK – urban habitats, farmland or nature reserves, where are the hot-spots of pollinator biodiversity in cities and what can we do to improve their diversity and abundance? To answer the first two questions we will look at whole communities of bees, flies, butterflies and beetles that visit flowers, constructing food webs that describe the patterns of flower-insect interactions. To answer the third question we will add flower mixtures high in nectar and pollen to selected city habitats in Bristol, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh and test whether this increases pollinator species richness and abundance. Our research will provide the data that conservation practitioners working in urban habitats need to conserve pollinators.
Seven practitioners are collaborators on the project and in addition to writing up the work for publication, we will convey our results to the UK practitioner community via a fully funded Practitioners’ Conference at the end of the project. Fieldwork will involve full days in the field sampling sites in southern England, and that fieldwork will occupy half to two thirds of working hours during the period April to September. A willingness to work with a wide range of people is essential. The technicians will be directly responsible to Professor Jane Memmott and a PDRA, both based at the University of Bristol. The technicians will manage two casual field assistants during the field seasons and will work with local conservation practitioners. Meetings with members of the consortium will involve several 2-3 day trips a year to the other cities involved in the project (Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading).
One of these posts is based at the University of Bristol, the other at the University of Reading.
Further information can be found at the Personnel web page: http://www.bris.ac.uk/boris/jobs/feeds/ads?ID=90891
The RAE Grade 5 School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol is seeking to recruit highly motivated independent Research Fellows. The School works on a diverse range of taxa at all levels (genes, cells, whole organisms, ecosystems) and has strong research links with other world-leading groups in the University (Biochemistry, Computer Science, Earth Sciences, Experimental Psychology, Geography, Mathematics, Physics). In 2014, we will move to a new state-of-the-art building.
Our Fellowship programme outlines our commitment to supporting the career development of Fellows through to permanent positions. If you are interested in applying for a Fellowship based at Bristol, please contact the Chair of the Research Committee, Professor Simon Hiscock, to discuss your plans.