Postdoc in Pollinator Microbial Ecology (3 year position, job advert closes 20th December) The Graystock Lab at the Silwood Park Campus of Imperial College London is seeking a microbial ecologist interested exploring the microbiomes of pollinators with the ambition to manipulate and optimise microbial communities that may protect bees from exposure to harmful stressors. The project aims to 1) Improve our understanding of microbe-host-environment functional interactions 2) explore host-microbiome evolution in natural and lab-based systems 3) Develop microbiomes that can improve bee health in a given environment 4) significantly advance our understanding of the bee-microbiome holobiont to facilitate pollinator health optimisation. This project represents a multi-disciplinary approach as part of the Leverhulme Centre for the holobiont, collaborating specifically with Professor Quinn McFrederick (University of California Riverside) and Professor Marc-Emmanuel Dumas (Imperial College London). The project stems from shared interests between the Graystock, McFrederick and Dumas labs to explore microbial dynamics, functional/metabolomic evolution, and developing applied solutions to improve host/pollinator health. Using a combination of field collections, lab and cage assays, microbial culturing and transplants, sequencing, and metabolomics, you will drive the development of beneficial microbiomes in pollinator systems. In addition to being part of the centre for the holobiont, you will also benefit from being located primarily at the Silwood park campus which is currently experiencing a burst of expansion in microbial ecology, boasting several staff exploring microbial interactions, directed evolution and impacts of microbes on host health. For more details: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jobs/description/index.php?jobId=21816 "Graystock, Peter"