Project properties
Title Effects of insect herbivory on the <b>soil microbiome</b> - A <b>bioinformatics</b> project
Group Entomology, Laboratory of
Project type thesis
Credits 24-36
Supervisor(s) Kris de Kreek
Examiner(s) Karen Kloth, Marcel Dicke
Contact info kris.dekreek@wur.nl
Begin date 2024/05/01
End date 2025/12/01
Description The soil microbiome plays a crucial role in plant immune responses against above-ground attackers and offers potential alternatives to chemical insecticides.

Plants recruit microbes upon insect attack to improve their defense against insects. To investigate this, a large experiment with 12 cabbage accessions was executed and over 600 rhizosphere and rhizoplane samples were sequenced for the bacterial community. At the same time, caterpillar performance and leaf damage were assessed.

In the thesis project, you work with a new data set that we recently acquired. You will analyse the responses of the bacterial community to aboveground herbivory. You will learn how to pre-process fastq files and analyse alpha/beta diversity and differential abundance. You will connect these insights to caterpillar performance data. You can use an existing microbiome data analysis pipeline in R which you will need to adapt with help of your supervisor.
Used skills Bioinformatics: pre-processing of metabarcode sequence data, alpha and beta diversity analyses, differential abundance analyses, designing of comprehensive figures, data interpretation and testing of biological hypotheses.
Requirements ENT-30806 (FABI) + a second ENT-course (can be: ENT-30306 (EABI), ENT-50806 (IPI), ENT-53806 (Biological Control of Insects), or PHP-30806 (MABI) or BHE-30306 (Behavioural Ecology)).