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School of Life Sciences

Dr Dave Chandler

Reader

email: Dave.Chandler@warwick.ac.uk

phone: 024 765 75041

Office (W): TPB51

 Office (GH): B177

Chandler webpage

Research clusters

Plant & Agricultural Bioscience

Other GRPs/Centres etc

Warwick Crop Centre

Vacancies and Opportunities

For PhD and postdoctoral opportunities, and interest in potential collaborations, please contact me at the above email address.

Research Interests

I am an agricultural entomologist, and I conduct applied research to improve crop production for farmers and growers.

A lot of my research focuses on Integrated Pest Management in horticultural crops, including the development of IPM tools and systems to help growers and farmers be more productive, profitable and sustainable. I have a particular interest in biological pest control and biopesticides.

I am a co-founder of Warwick Agri-Tech, a joint initiative with WMG and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult where we are working to de-risk innovation for agri-technology developers, farmers and growers.

Finally, I have a long-standing interest in the use of bees for supplemental crop pollination, including sustainable bee health and management.

Research: Technical Summary

A key research area is the development and use of biopesticides in IPM. My background is in insect pathology, and I concentrated originally on studying entomopathogenic fungi as biocontrol agents in horticultural crops. My research has expanded over the years to include other types of biopesticides. I ran the AHDB AMBER project to help growers get the best out of biopesticides in modern crop protection systems. More recently, we have been working to identify sources of partial, durable resistance to insect pests in vegetable crops and understand how they can be used with biopesticides and other biocontrols to reduce over-reliance on synthetic chemical pesticides.

In Warwick Agri-Tech, we work with companies, farmers, growers and others to help develop technologies, science-based innovations and practices to improve the productivity and sustainability of agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Focus areas include development of robotics, AI, and vision systems for semi-autonomous crop management tasks, crop scouting and decisions support, and new crop protection technologies.

Many of our crops rely on pollinating insects to boost yield and quality, and the use of managed bees for supplemental pollination is an indispensable component of modern farming. Unfortunately, both managed and wild bees are under a lot of pressure and there is a need for effective, sustainable ways of managing them. In the UK and around the world, honeybees face particular problems from the varroa mite and its associated viruses, and there is a need to better understand bee-varroa-virus interactions and help beekeepers get better management tools. I have also worked extensively with the protected crops industry to understand the causes of poor pollination with managed bumblebees and its relationship with heatwave events linked to climate change. We also work on new approaches for supplemental pollination, specifically on research to underpin the commercial development of red mason bees in tree fruit.

I have been a science advisor to the European Parliament on the sustainable use of pesticides, and I have been a research programme assessor for the US Department of Agriculture. I am a member of the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides, providing independent advice to the government on the science relating to pesticides, through the Health and Safety Executive.

I am based at Warwick Crop Centre at the Stratford upon Avon Innovation Campus, where we are lucky enough as a team to have facilities and expertise for a range of applied crop research, including our working farm, field plots, glasshouses, the UK Vegetable Gene Bank, controlled environment facilities, a track sprayer for precision application, and a pilot glasshouse facility for agri-tech.

In my teaching, I run the Year 2 Biological Sciences BSc module on Ecological Principles and Processes which includes the residential ecology field course in Pembrokeshire. I also teach on the Ecology and its Applications module, and I run the Year 3 Environmental Biology lab on river health. For postgraduate teaching, I run the MSc module on Bioscience, Politics and Social Acceptability, and I also lecture on a range of our other MSc modules including for crop protection, biological invasions, and biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Dave has worked at Warwick Crop Centre since 1990. Previous to this, he studied for a bachelor degree in biology at the University of Nottingham, followed by a PhD in mycology at Kings College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, has been an adviser on IPM to the European Parliament and a research programme assessor for the US Department of Agriculture

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