January 2026-May 2026

UCL MRes Student Billy Easeman on his MRes Research Project with the Sumner Lab 

Wasps are an undervalued group of insects with high ecological importance as arthropod regulators which utilise two major strategies – as parasitoids (solitary, with larval parasitic stage) and aculeates (predators), both of which lack diet information. Billy’s project used DNA metabarcoding of wasp guts to better understand their diets, focusing on parasitoids (Can we identify their larval-stage host from remnants of DNA in the guts of the adults?) and African social wasps (What do the Belonogaster wasps of Cameroon hunt?). As part of his quest, Billy enjoyed a visit to our collaborator Dr Jordan Cuff, in Newcastle University, who is a world expert in the use of nanopore sequencing to analyse arthropod gut contents.

A foraging worker of Belonogaster juncea, hard at work in agricultural field of Cameroon. Photo: Seirian Sumner