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.
The aim of the proposed research will be to complement a general study of the contemporary
dispersal of the bark beetle Dendroctonus micans (Scolytine) by analyzing its population
structure with molecular markers.
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.