Insect Research Group, University College London
‘Why fly half way across the world to Trinidad when there are plenty of wasps drowning in my lemonade in Peckham?’ was a fairly reasonable question I was asked by a friend. Trinidad may not initially seem a prime location for conducting field work, yet it is one of the regions with the greatest diversity…
VIDEO Check out this time-lapse video from my 2014 field season of a busy potter wasp constructing a pot in the Arima Valley, Trinidad.
Many members of our lab group are pretty big on science communication, and needless to say I am no exception. I am a firm believer that science can, and should, be made accessible to people of all ages. With a bit of hard work we can get people to think differently about the world they…
We are a pair of undergraduate students working on our dissertation project in the Sumner Lab. For our project we decided to study the effects that agrochemicals can have on two native UK ant species. Non-target organisms can often become victims of exposure to agricultural chemicals, with the most studied example being the common honeybee…
Seirian is keeping busy with a series of seminars in UK universities in the next few weeks, where she is talking about the molecular basis of sociality. Find her at UCL, Swansea, Bath and Exeter.
We don’t only do social insect research. Seirian and collaborator Dr Nathalie Pettorelli at ZSL, London Zoo run a women in science public engagement initiative, Soapbox Science. We are currently recruiting a part-time events and media coordinator to help run Soapbox Science. More information here. Deadline is 20th November 2014.
Today our new, £60 million Life science building was officially opened by Sir David Attenborough, as reported here by ITV West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfRvME–7Lg
We at the Sumner Group encounter this question a lot. Wasps are just useless, painful, and inexplicably determined to ruin your picnic, right? Actually, no! It turns out that wasps are surprisingly important in more ways than you might guess, and we’ve assembled a handy catalogue of reasons why. So next time we’re asked the…
This summer both Seirian and Emily attended the International Union for the Study of Social Insects international conference in Cairns, Australia. The event was hosted in the Cairns Conference Centre next to the Great Barrier Reef and really was a stunning location. Social insect researchers from all over the globe gathered to present and discuss…