PhD Studentship: Mechanisms of colour change in chameleon prawns - from genes to sensory ecology. BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD studentship 2025 Entry

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.

Project Description

Colour change and camouflage are two extremely common adaptations in nature, often used by prey to avoid being seen by predators. Colour change is often used by animals to tune their appearance over various timescales to match the prevailing background. It is very common in crustaceans, including crabs, prawns and others. We have an excellent understanding of why camouflage and colour change exists (its function) but very little understanding of many of the mechanisms that drive it. This project will utilise the widely studied and extremely colourful chameleon prawn found in the UK. It is an abundant species found locally in the rock pools Cornwall and an ideal system to study colour change because individuals can change from red, to green, to yellow, and even transparent to match different seaweed species. They are also capable of choosing to sit on backgrounds that match their coloration. They are highly amenable to study in the lab and field. The project will involve experiments to test what aspects of vision or other senses chameleon prawns used to guide their colour change and behaviour, and disentangle the sensory information used. It will also involve experiments to test what their visual system may be capable of perceiving, and how they respond to potential threats. The work will also aim to determine how changes in genes and molecular biology underpin colour change and behaviour, and vision. Ultimately, the project will shed light on how colour change in nature works and how behavioural choice for camouflage is guided.

Advert information