Project title: It’s getting hot in here: uncovering the molecular mechanisms underlying changes in social behaviour at increased temperatures.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
Global climate change is arguably the greatest threat to biodiversity in the 21st century. In addition to having profound effects on animals’ physiology and life-history, rising temperatures have been shown to influence a wide range of behavioural traits, in the context of foraging, mating, predator-prey interactions, and social interactions. In fact, given that behaviour is very labile, changes in behaviour are expected to be organisms’ first response to rapid environmental changes. Recent empirical evidence suggests that higher temperatures might result in a reduction in sociability and increased aggression towards conspecifics, as the balance between the costs and benefits of being social changes in warmer environments.
Study System
This project will investigate changes in social behaviour and the associated molecular mechanisms under different temperature treatments in the lab, using the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides as a study system. This species breeds on carcasses of small vertebrates and exhibits facultative biparental care, which includes guarding the carcass to protect the brood from predators and conspecific competitors. Given that carcasses are essential for reproduction but also constitute a rare resource, there is fierce intrasexual competition for them. Individuals engage in fighting contests to secure access to a carcass, frequently resulting in injuries or death, and there is a higher likelihood of these adverse outcomes at increased temperatures. On the other hand, this species exhibits communal or cooperative breeding when a large carcass is available [5], with multiple breeding pairs all sharing the same resource and rearing their offspring together. The complex, but flexible, social behaviours of this species thus make it ideally suited for investigating the molecular basis of social behaviour under climate change. The PhD student will use state-of-the-art molecular techniques to investigate changes in brain gene expression that control the switch from “cooperation mode” to “fighting mode” under different temperature conditions.
Training
The PhD student will employ a wide range of techniques integrating animal behaviour, molecular biology, and evolutionary ecology. They will gain valuable skills in transcriptomics, behavioural observations, animal husbandry, statistical modelling, and bioinformatics. There will also be a strong focus on the student’s development of transferrable skills, such as project management, written communication, and oral communication.
