Behavioural Ecology

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITIONS:
2006-present Professor, Department of Animal & Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield

EDUCATION:
• 1989-1990 Royal Society/JSPS research fellow, Nagoya University, Japan
• 1983-1989 DPhil, University of Oxford, UK
• 1980-1983 BSc, University College London, UK

EDITORIAL POSITIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS:
• Reviews Editor and Editorial board: Proc Roy Soc ser B
• Editorial board: Behav Ecol Sociobiol
• Editor: J Ethology
• Board member: British Dragonfly Society
• Editorial Board: Funct Ecol

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
My research interests are largely focussed on sexual conflict, ecological immunology and interactions between reproduction and immunity. These interests are pursued using insects as models and key organisms are the damselfly Calopteryx xanthostoma, the flour beetle, Tenebrio molitor, and the bed-bugs. Current projects include:
• Identifying the nature of the interaction between immune traits and sexual signals in a field population of damselflies
• Examining the reproductive physiology and biology of key members of the Cimicidae
• Quantifying costs and benefits of traumatic insemination to males and females and identifying the role of the spermalege in the Cimicidae
• Constructing a phylogeny of the Cimicidae
• Examining prophylactic immunity in female cimicids
• Understanding the temporal management of insect immune effector systems