Formerly a PhD student in the Sumner Lab, for the past three years I’ve been working with Dr Brock Harpur at Purdue University in Indiana on USDA-funded projects on the population genomics of invasive ‘murder’ hornets and the genomic signatures of a major evolutionary transition in Australian stingless bees. I’ve now returned to the Sumner Lab to continue my Human Frontiers Science Program Fellowship, applying machine learning pipelines to identify regulomic features associated with social evolution in bees and wasps.
Position: Human Frontiers Science Program Research Fellow
Project: Machine learning to identify multi-omic signatures of social insect evolution
Research Interests: The division of reproductive labour between reproductive and non-reproductive castes is the diagnostic feature of the major evolutionary transition to eusociality. Caste specialisation results in a substantial reduction in the potential for conflict both at the level of the individual (over allocation of energy) and at the level of the group (over access to reproductive opportunities). The resulting efficiency of colonies with fixed castes is a major contributing factor to the ecological success of eusocial species.
My work combines behavioural, transcriptomic and genomic data to investigate the evolutionary mechanisms by which castes have evolved across the Vespidae, a cosmopolitan family of wasps representing two independent origins of eusociality and a wide range of degrees of social evolution. I am particularly interested in the transition from ‘primitively eusocial’ species, in which castes are present but plastic, to more derived species in which castes are morphological and implastic.
Selected Publications:
Taylor, B. A., Tembrock, L. R., Sankovitz, M., Wilson, T. M., Looney, C., Takahashi, J., … & Harpur, B. A. (2024). Population genomics of the invasive Northern Giant Hornet Vespa mandarinia in North America and across its native range. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 10803. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-61534-0
Taylor, B. A., Taylor, D., Bodrug‐Schepers, A., Câmara Ferreira, F., Stralis‐Pavese, N., Himmelbauer, H., … & Sumner, S. (2024). Molecular signatures of alternative reproductive strategies in a facultatively social hover wasp. Molecular Ecology, 33(2), e17217. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.17217
Taylor B. A., Cini A., Cervo R., Reuter M., & Sumner S. (2020) Queen succession conflict in the paper wasp Polistes dominula is mitigated by age-based convention. Behavioral Ecology, 31, 992-1002. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araa045
Taylor B. A., Cini A., Wyatt. C., Reuter M., & Sumner S. (2021) The molecular basis of socially-mediated phenotypic plasticity in a eusocial paper wasp. Nature Communications, 12, 775. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21095-6
Taylor B. A., Reuter M., & Sumner S. (2019). Patterns of reproductive differentiation and reproductive plasticity in the major evolutionary transition to superorganismality. Current Opinion in Insect Science, 34, 40-47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2019.02.007
Background:
2021 – 2025: USDA and Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) Fellow
2016 – 2021: PhD Candidate, University College London
2014 – 2015: MSci History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
2010 – 2014: BA (Hons) Zoology, University of Cambridge
Contact:
E-mail: benjamin.aaron.taylor@gmail.com
Bluesky: @bentaylorevo.bsky.social