Professor Jeremy Field

Professor Jeremy Field is an internationally recognized expert in the evolution and ecology of social behaviour, using insect societies as model systems. Professor Field’s research addresses fundamental questions in behavioural ecology and evolution, focussed particularly on how and why social behaviour evolves. Professor Field’s research involves a combination of manipulative field experiments, phylogenetically controlled comparative analyses, mathematical modelling, and molecular work. Some of the study organisms his group uses include (1) Socially polymorphic sweat bees that nest in burrows in the ground (Halictus, Lasioglossum, UK and Europe); (2) Primitively eusocial wasps that construct open air nests using materials such as paper, mud or silk: paper-wasps (Polistes, Spain), hover wasps (Liostenogaster, Malaysia) and silk wasps (Microstigmus, neotropics); (3) Pre-social digger wasps (Ammophila, UK). The over-arching aim is to use these diverse systems to understand major features of social evolution at both behavioural and genetic levels. Professor Field is always keen to hear from prospective PhD students, Fellows and ECRs who would like to work collaboratively in these areas.