Elucidating the Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Genomic Diversity - and Its Drivers - in a Wild Bird Population, NERC GW4+ DTP PhD Studentship for September 2025 Entry

About the Partnership

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus five Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science. For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/

Project details

For information relating to the research project please contact the lead Supervisor via e.postma@exeter.ac.uk

Project Aims and Methods

Intraspecific genetic diversity is a major contributor to global biodiversity. Being the fuel for adaptive evolution and a key determinant of population fitness, it - in theory - enables populations to adapt to environmental change, making it a key determinant of population viability. Hence, genetic diversity is considered an ‘Essential Biodiversity Variable’ in need of monitoring and conserving. Although recent studies suggest that since the industrial revolution globally genetic diversity has declined, we lack an in-depth and fine-grained understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of intra-specific genetic diversity, and the underlying mechanisms that drive these. In this project, you will therefore capitalise on genome-wide measures of genomic diversity for an island population of great tits (Parus major) that has been monitored continuously for 70 years. By combining Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) data for over a thousand birds with exceptionally comprehensive multi-generational pedigree data covering the complete population, you will quantify changes in genetic diversity over time, and genetic differentiation across space. By linking these to the demography of the population, you will infer the drivers of these changes and quantify their importance, enabling fundamental new insights into the dynamics of intraspecific biodiversity. 

Project partners

The Institute of Zoology will contribute to the project through co-developing and co-supervision of the project, training, access to data and software. 

Training

The DTP offers funding to undertake specialist training relating to the student’s specialist area of research. 

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