Department of Zoology

 

Evolution and Diversity

Farnon Ellwood

Research Associate, University Museum of Zoology

Email: mdfe2@cam.ac.uk

Tel.: +44 (0) 1223 336671

My interests relate to invertebrate biodiversity, from its evolutionary origins to the ecological mechanisms that structure communities. Originally, I worked on rainforest arthropods, particularly those that live inside epiphytic bird’s nest ferns (Asplenium spp). Bird’s nest ferns are among the largest epiphytes in the world and occur throughout Southeast Asia. The ferns provide discrete habitats for their invertebrate inhabitants, and can be transplanted anywhere in the canopy, a feature which makes them ideal for testing community assembly rules. As living organisms, themselves designed by natural selection to intercept and retain falling litter and suspended soil, the ferns are not only reservoirs of biodiversity; they represent valuable natural microcosms for the study of ecosystem processes such as decomposition. Manipulation of the animal communities of bird’s nest ferns has provided us with novel insights into the relative importance of dispersal and competition in the development of tropical arthropod communities.

More recently I have been looking for ways of using stable isotopes to track the distribution and behaviour of insects from around the world. Being able to take precise measurements of the effects of climate, and of climate change, on individual arthropods has profound implications, both for those who study environmental variation and life history traits, for conservation biologists, and for behavioural ecologists. Based on a unique property of the oxygen isotopes in water, specifically that the isotopes behave differently during evaporation and condensation, we have shown that the 18O signature of insect haemolymph can be used to define the habitat preferences, and the climatic tolerances, of individual insects.

I also work on the latitudinal and spatial patterns of invertebrates in intertidal seagrass beds, which are among the most productive, richest and most threatened of the world’s shallow marine habitats. However, in comparison with more charismatic systems such as coral reefs, their value is often unappreciated, and much of their ecological adaptations, structure, and functioning remains poorly understood.

Selected publications

  • Ellwood, M.D.F., Northfield, R.G.W., Mejia-Chang, M. and Griffiths, H. (2011) On the vapour trail of an atmospheric imprint in insects. Biology Letters 7: 601-604. PDF
  • Barnes, R.S.K. and Ellwood, M.D.F. (2011) Macrobenthic assemblage structure in a cool-temperate intertidal dwarf eelgrass bed in comparison with those from lower latitudes. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 104: 527-540. PDF
  • Barnes, R.S.K. and Ellwood, M.D.F. (2011) The significance of shore height in intertidal macrobenthic seagrass ecology and conservation. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems DOI: 10.1002/aqc.1234. PDF
  • Foster, W.A., Snaddon, J.L., Turner, E.C., Fayle, T.M., Cockerill, T.D., Ellwood, M.D.F., Broad, G.R., Chung, A.Y.C., Eggleton, P., Chey, V.K. and Yusah, K.M. (2011) Establishing the evidence base for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in the oil palm landscapes of South East Asia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B 366: 3277-3291. PDF
  • Ellwood, M.D.F. , Manica, A. and Foster, W.A. (2009) Stochastic and deterministic processes jointly structure tropical arthropod communities. Ecology Letters 12: 277-284. PDF
  • Dial, R.J., Ellwood, M.D.F., Turner, E.C. and Foster, W.A. (2006) Arthropod abundance, canopy structure, and microclimate in a Bornean lowland tropical rain forest. Biotropica 38:643-652. PDF
  • Ellwood, M.D.F. and Foster, W.A. (2004) Doubling the estimate of invertebrate biomass in a rainforest canopy. Nature 429: 549-551. PDF
  • Ellwood, M.D.F., Jones, D.T. and Foster, W.A. (2002) Canopy ferns in lowland dipterocarp forest support a prolific abundance of ants, termites and other invertebrates. Biotropica 34: 575-583. PDF
  • Disney, R.H.L. and Ellwood, M.D.F. (2001) An intriguing new genus of scuttle fly (Diptera: Phoridae) from Borneo. Fragmenta Faunistica 44: 319-328.
  • Compton, S.G., Ellwood, M.D.F., Davis, A.J. and Welch, K. (2000) The flight heights of chalcid wasps (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) in a lowland Bornean rain forest: fig wasps are the high fliers. Biotropica 32: 515-522. PDF
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