At the Institute of Zoology, we are interested in behavioural, ecological and genetic research on both the social behaviour and the conservation biology of bumble bees.

Within these areas, we focus in particular on conflicts over reproduction within colonies, on the genetics of caste determination, and on the conservation ecology and genetics of UK bumble bee species.

For further details of current and recent projects, and of related publications, please follow this link.

Institute of Zoology

Zoological Society of London

Dr Andrew Bourke

A study of the habitat and habitat management requirements of Bombus sylvarum and B. humilis in South Essex. The study looks at the ecology and behaviour of these two UK BAP species at sites across South Essex including Wat Tyler Country Park, Hadleigh Castle Country Park and the Northwick site, Canvey Island. The focus of the study is on nectar and pollen resource use, the potential benefit of and the best methods for creating forage patches on sites which are already known to support these bees, creating new forage patches and assessing the bees ability to locate these patches on sites not known to support the bees, and asssessing over what spatial scales they are able to do this.

The study is also hoping to use the Microsatellite DNA methods developed and currently being used by Dr Bourke (Institute of Zoology) and Dr Goulson (University of Southampton) to make assessments of colony density within the parks and foraging distances of worker bees.

School of Health and Bioscience

University of East London

Stuart Connop

Research Assistant

Current research:

The effect of habitat fragmentation on the population genetics of B. muscorum and B. jonellus

The effect of reduced genetic diversity on the frequency of diploid males and triploid individuals in wild bumblebee populations

Phylogeny of B. jonellus and the relative importance of queen versus male geneflow.

Mono vs polyandry in rare bumblebees

Bumblebee nest densities and effective population sizes

The genetics of B. hypnorum - founder effects and mutation rates

Nest semiochemicals - nest searching mechanisms in queens and Psythirus Worker size and forage use

School of Biological Sciences

University of Southampton

Ben Darvill

School of Biological and Environmental Sciences

University of Stirling

Prof Dave Goulson

Link

A public participation survey of the bumblebees of Essex. Records of bumblebees seen in gardens and surrounding habitats, and flowers used for forage by each bee species seen.

Peter Harvey

Essex Field Club website manager

Subject to Heritage Lottery Funding, Buglife will be running a five year bumblebee project which will include raising public awareness of bumblebees and training in bumblebee taxonomy for national surveying. The project is aimed towards creating a national bumblebee identification knowledge base and utilising this to begin annual monitoring of bumblebee poulations.

Buglife

Edie Jolley

National Bumblebee Survey Project Officer

Study of the ecology, behaviour and movement of bees and other pollinatorsin relation to the landscape. Consequences of pollinator behaviour on pollen flow within and between crops, and within and between wild plants, in the arable landscape.

Link

Rothamsted Research

Dr Juliet Osborne

Pollination Ecologist

Current research: My PhD (completed in 1999) was on the foraging ecology of bumblebees (supervised by Dave Goulson and John Allen at Southampton University).

Current research interests address various aspects of pollinator ecology, including population biology, plant breeding systems and gene flow, pollinator behaviour, impacts of invasive species and conservation of plant-pollinator mutualisms.

Ongoing projects examine the interaction between invasive alien plants and their pollinators, pollination of rare and common orchid species, and conservation of pollinators.

For further details of current and recent projects, and of related publications, please follow this link

Trinity College

University of Dublin

Dr Jane C. Stout

Lecturer

Department of Entomology

The Natural History Museum

Cromwell Rd

London SW7 5BD

Dr Paul Williams

Southampton University

CEH Monks Wood

Queen Mary University

London

Queen Mary University

London