Insect Research Group, University College London
Dr Cintia Oi on their recent visit to New York for the recent Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory meeting on the Biology & Genomics of Social Insects.
Lewis successfully defended his thesis, titled Mechanisms and Evolution of Phenotypic Plasticity in Social Insects, on 15th March 2024.
We are excited to announce the start of our BBSRC- “Bioinformatics and Biological Resources Fund” grant to help build next generation agri-ecology workflows and their respective communities.
We used samples from the Big Wasp Survey to analyse the population genetic structure of the Common Yellowjacket, Vespula vulgaris across the UK. You can read the paper here (Open Access).
Professor Fabio Nascimento visited the Summer lab in July 2023 as part of the Nerc-Fapesp Seed Corn project (NE/W004437/1) “Secrets to a Successful Hunt: Integrating Genomes, Chemistry, and Behaviour in Neotropical Solitary Wasps”.
In order to foster new relationships between wasp researchers, the NHM and its collections, we organised the first ever (with hopefully more to come) “Wasp Day” in May 2023.
In January of 2023, Prof Seirian Sumner and post-doc Dr Cintia Oi travelled to Brazil to carry out work as part of their project Secrets to a Successful Hunt: Integrating Genomes, Chemistry and Behaviour in Neotropical Solitary Wasps (read full details of this collaborative international NERC-funded project here).
Postdoc Émeline Favreau on her experience attending the Nextflow Summit and Hackathon in October 2022.
A new paper, first author Emeline Favreau, has been highlighted in the January edition of journal Genome Biology and Evolution. Congratulations to Emeline, Chris Wyatt and Katie Geist on their momentous study on the molecular basis of sociality across bees and wasps. Read the highlight here, or find the paper itself here.
We were delighted to host a group meeting with Sjoert on November 2022.