2026-27 Project List

Human demands on the planet are growing rapidly, generating large-scale land-use change, climate change, and degradation of ecosystems. We are witnessing rapid losses of biodiversity, with consequences for humanity that are not fully understood. 

Researchers in this theme aim to understand patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem change, to characterise pressures that are driving loss or degradation, and to identify the most effective and efficient responses, at every scale from local land management to international convention. Our work also confronts the challenge of balancing the conservation of biodiversity against the use of land for food production and seeks new alternatives for guaranteeing food security. 

Projects: 

Tracking the past to predict the future 

Supervisor: Professor Andrea Manica

Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins 

Population genomics of invasive Helicoverpa crop pests 

Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins 

Gene family diversification in the black soldier fly

Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins 

Butterfly banks as miniature conservation interventions

Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner 

How has the morphology of moths altered in response to anthropogenic change over the past two centuries?

Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner 

The impacts of riparian within oil palm on insect movement and behaviour

Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner 

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of early animals

Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell 

Fine-scale community ecology of Antarctic benthic communities

Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell 

The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish

Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read

Conservation of wild bees in agricultural landscapes 

Supervisor: Professor Lynn Dicks 

Heat stress vulnerability in insects during critical periods of development – understanding mechanisms to find solutions 

Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf

Reversing defaunation through rewilding and its consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem function

Supervisor: Professor Rob Fletcher 

Effects of light microhabitats in shaping species assemblages in tropical forest

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Life on the edge: local adaptation and conservation status of butterflies on the Orme 

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Click here to learn more about our research in the Ecology and Conservation Science theme or identify a potential supervisor. 

The diversity of life that exists today, and indeed that has ever existed, arose through evolution - often in response to sudden environmental change.

Researchers in this theme use the full history of life on earth to analyse how evolution works and why some species thrive while others go extinct. We investigate the genetic origins of adaptive diversity, the way that new mutations arise and the extent to which genetic innovations are ‘borrowed’ from other lineages. We study how adaptations arise from selective pressures under different ecological environments, including the selective environments that are generated when new species interact, as climate change brings new species together, or that result from social behaviour within species. 

Projects: 

Brain and behavioural disfunction in interspecific hybrids, and their role in speciation 

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Evolution of behavioural mechanisms underpinning spatial memory 

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Convergent evolution of social regurgitation across Hymenoptera

Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf

The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish

Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read

Towards an Integrative Understanding of Animal Weapons

Supervisor: Professor Christine Miller 

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of early animals 

Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell 

Rare taxa in the early animals of the Ediacaran 

Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell 

Reproductive and dispersal dynamics of early animals of the Ediacaran 

Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell 

Click here to learn more about our research in the Evolution theme or identify a potential supervisor. 

An animal’s behaviour is the most flexible part of its phenotype. Researchers in this theme investigate how animal behaviour provides a first line of defence for coping with a new and adverse world, enabling individuals to be highly responsive to a changeable social, ecological and physical environment. We analyse why some animals are more sociable than others, and how their social interactions drive the further evolution of adaptive behaviour and morphology. We determine how individual neurones cause a behaviour to happen, by analysing how sensory perception connects through to action.  Our work investigates how behaviour and bodies develop under changeable environmental conditions.

Projects: 

Evolution of Living Storage – Genomic and Behavioural Analysis of Honeypot Ant Repletism

Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf

Characterising newly discovered neurotransmitter receptors 

Supervisor: Dr Iris Hardege 

The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish

Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read

Regulation of neuronal plasticity by metabolic reactive oxygen species 

Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf 

Glial cell evolution during brain expansion

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Click here to learn more about our research in the Behaviour and Neuroscience theme or identify a potential supervisor. 

Through a deeper understanding of how DNA replicates, how cells function and how bodies develop, we can recognise what happens when biology goes wrong – and apply that knowledge to mitigate the negative consequences for human health.

By understanding how new mutations arise and respond to selection, we can predict the gene sequences that will evolve next and stay one step ahead in the evolutionary arms race between vaccines and pathogens.

Finally, by understanding how animals move and change their behaviour in response to climate change, we can predict which species will soon interact for the first time and where there is greatest risk of new zoonotic diseases emerging.

Projects: 

Lifespan impacts of metabolic division of labour

Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf

Extreme chromosomal instability in bivalve transmissible cancers 

Supervisor: Dr Adrian Baez-Ortega 

Catch, release, authenticate: customisable protein-capture materials for palaeoproteomics and evolutionary medicine

Supervisor: Dr Christiana Scheib

Predicting the Evolution of Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 Viruses

Supervisor: Professor Derek Smith 

Epigenetic mechanism of critical period-plasticity in nervous system development

Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf

Metabolic regulation of brain development

Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf

Biomolecular condensates in early development

Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil 

In vitro fertilisation and egg activation in Drosophila 

Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil 

Coordinated change and programmed cell death in small cell networks 

Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil 

Ageing brains, metabolism and sleep 

Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery

Click here to learn more about our research in the Health and Evolutionary Medicine theme or identify a potential supervisor.