PhD Studentship, University of Glasgow

PhD Studentship,  University of Glasgow

Food security in the omics era: the role of polyploidy, hybridisation and
mating system on the ability of crops to adapt to changing environments

An acknowledged threat to food security is the ability of crops and
livestock to respond to increased environmental variability resulting
from climate change. In plants, crops are often selected to be able to
self-propagate but this comes at a cost to genetic variation, which could
reduce potential for adaptation to changing environments. Hybridising
different strains can increase genetic variation and combine desirable
traits from different species but this is often accompanied by doubling
of the genome (polyploidisation) to increase stability of the hybrid
combination. Theoretically, this should increase flexibility to adapt
to changing conditions. However, the relative effects of such breeding
strategies on adaptability and the consequences for yield of economically
important traits remain largely untested. Importantly, plants adapting
to changing environments need to be able to continue to attract
beneficial symbionts (pollinators and soil microbes that enable them
to process nutrients) and to combat potentially new threats (pathogens
and herbivores) but it is not known how the combination of mating
system, ploidy and hybridisation affect such interactions. An exciting
technological development is characterisation of microbial communities
using deep sequencing approaches. The vast amounts of data generated
and the difficulty of resolving species based on short sequences means
that improved methods need to be developed for characterising microbial
diversity and interpreting what this means for interacting organisms.

Using a common garden approach, combined with generation and analysis of
deep sequencing data, and development of advanced statistical approaches
to characterising biodiversity, the purpose of this multidisciplinary
project is to use economically important Brassica napus (oilseed rape,
which is used for both biofuel and edible oil production and is a
polyploid hybrid that reproduces by self-fertilising) as a model to
investigate:
1) the relative ability of plants with different traits to adapt to new
   environments;
2) the role of the microbial community in plant adaptation;
3) the consequences of the interaction between plant fitness and
   microbial community diversity for oil seed yield.

Project team:

Dr Barbara Mable (Principal investigator), Institute of Biodiversity,
Animal Health & Comparative Medicine

Dr Christina Cobbold (Co-investigator), School of Mathematics and
Statistics

Dr Bill Mullen (Co-investigator), Institute of Cardiovascular and
Medical Sciences

Dr Chris Quince (Co-investigator), School of Engineering

Mr. Stephen Herrington (Project Partner), Curator, Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Application Process: Please contact the Principal investigator
(Barbara.mable@glasgow.ac.uk) directly
to enquire about applying for this scholarship.  In the first instance,
please send your CV and a written personal statement (no more than 300
words) of why you are interested in applying for this PhD position.

Eligibility: There are no citizenship or residency restrictions but
applicants should have an equivalent of a UK 2:1 (B average) in a relevant
undergraduate degree and/or have passed a Master's degree with at least
a Merit (B average).   This project requires strong quantitative skills
but prior experience with advanced statistics or bioinformatics is
not required.

Deadlines: We are still accepting applicants for this position and will
do so until we have found a suitable candidate.

Barbara.Mable@glasgow.ac.uk