3 Postdoc Positions University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna

A Postdoctoral position is available at the Institute of Forest Entomology, Forest Pathology and Forest Protection, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, at BOKU Vienna in the lab of Christian Stauffer. Two Postdoc positions are being offered at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) in the lab of Hannes Schuler. The project is funded for three years by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Province of Bolzano and aims to study different factors that are influencing the transmission of phytoplasmas by psyllid species.

‍Phytoplasmas are bacterial pathogens that cause hundreds of plant diseases affecting many important vegetables and fruit crops, thus being responsible for high yield losses worldwide. These pathogens reside in the plant's phloem and transmission among plants is mainly mediated by phloem-sucking insects. Apple proliferation is a disease caused by the phytoplasma ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma mali’. While several phloem feeders occur on apple, only a small number is able to acquire and transmit phytoplasmas. We aim to unravel phytoplasma transmission pathways in different insect vectors using a population genetic approach.

Further details:
3 Postdoc Positions University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna