This PhD-study aims to investigate how agricultural intensification affects food-web interactions and biological control of cereal aphids. The student will compare arthropod food webs in cereal crops with different levels of local and/or landscape level agricultural intensification. Molecular gut content analyses will be used to investigate the strength of trophic interactions among different taxa associated with cereal aphids. Analyses will include, e.g. how levels of intra-guild and alternative prey predation are affected by land-use and how this impacts on biological control of cereal aphids. The student will also have the opportunity to conduct manipulative field cage or laboratory studies to test hypotheses derived from the food-web analyses. The results of this work are expected to improve our mechanistic understanding of how land-use and biodiversity affects biological control and will help us find means of improving biocontrol efficacy.

PhD student in Ecology at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences