We are looking for a postdoctoral candidate for a 2 years position to work on the contemporary dispersal of the bark beetle Dendroctonus micans using molecular markers. The candidate should have a strong experience in population genetic analyses and in working with molecular markers. Experience in forest entomology will also be valued, but is not essential. The candidate will contribute to a project (see description below) funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), and work in the laboratory of Biological Control and Spatial Ecology (http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/lubies/index.html) and in the laboratory of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology (http://ebe.ulb.ac.be/ebe/ebe-Welcome.html). To apply, please send a CV, a statement of research interests/experiences, and names and contact information of two references that are familiar with your work, to Jean-Claude Grégoire (jcgregoi@ulb.ac.be), before June 21, 2010. We will eventually propose one candidate for a postdoctoral grant from the FNRS (only non-Belgian candidates, who had their doctorate at most 6 years before the postdoc starts, are eligible). The grant can start in January 2011 and salary is ca. 2000 euros/month.

D. micans is probably of Siberian origin and has been gradually moving into Western Europe since the late nineteenth century. The whole life cycle of this insect occurs within the phloem of living spruces, despite the presence of toxic monoterpenes in the resin. The larvae are gregarious. The sex ratio is unbalanced, ranging from 1:10 to 1:40 in favour of females. After metamorphosis, the young males mate with their sisters, so that 98% of the emerging females are fertilized by their brothers. Each female is then immediately able to colonize a new host. The adults are not gregarious and attack their host tree solitarily.

For a long time, it was thought that the males never leave their natal gallery, because they mate within them. However, males have recently been trapped in the forest (passive interception traps) in ratios similar to those observed in the galleries. This raises questions over the fate of these males and over the function of their flights. Do the flying males enter other chambers containing pre-emergent broods, or do they join their sisters in their new galleries? Only one adult female is usually found in the newly formed egg galleries.

A preliminary study of genetic variation suggests low levels of variation within populations, but has identified a couple of microsatellite loci for which different alleles are fixed in different populations sampled in France and Belgium. The proposed postdoc will focus on the indentification of additional molecular markers and their use for characterizing the genetic structure of D. micans populations. These molecular data will be combined with behavioral data and a field study directly assessing the movement of the beetles, in order to increase our understanding of the dispersal strategy of this insect pest.