Elva Joan Hilda Robinson

Elva Joan Hilda Robinson

Prof

Former affiliations

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

PhD project currently available:

Translocating an ecosystem engineer: the impact of wood ants on woodland communities
Funded by NERC ACCE+ DLA
Project details and how to apply here:
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/acce-dla-programme-translocating-an-ecosystem-engineer-the-impact-of-wood-ants-on-woodland-communities/?p178907
Deadline 8th January 2025.

MSc by Research opportunities

Assessing the conservation status of wood ants across Europe.

Background
Wood ants are ecosystem engineers, increasing biodiversity in the woodlands where they occur. They are also both habitat specialists, and poor dispersers, making them vulnerable to woodland fragmentation. IUCN Red Listing assesses the extinction risk faced by a species, providing evidenced information about their range, habitat, ecology, threats and trajectory, to enable informed conservation policy. A subset of wood ant species were Red List assessed in 1996; other wood ant species have never been assessed. There is a therefore a pressing need for up to date and complete Red List assessments for this group.

Objectives
1 To collate and evaluate current and historic data on wood ant distributions across their range
2 To carry out Red List assessments for wood ant species based on these datasets.

Methodology
This project will involve both collating and evaluating existing published data, and also working with newly collected datasets on wood ant distributions. The new data are being collected as part of the European-wide project MonitAnt, and it will thus be possible for data gaps to be identified and targeted as part of the integration between the Red List assessment process and the data collection. IUCN Red List methodology will be used to conduct the red list assessments.

Impact
The outcome of this project will be Red List assessments for wood ant species, which will identify the level of threat these species are facing, and will help inform woodland management and conservation decisions for these keystone species.

Project Partners
This project will be supervised by Professor Elva Robinson and Professor Colin Beale, University of York. The MonitAnt Team (https://www.biodiversa.eu/2024/04/15/monitant/) will support the project with data and expertise from across Europe. The project will also be supported by the Species Survival Commission’s Ant Specialist Group Red List Authority Coordinator, Gabrielle Flinn.

Deadline 16th May 2025.

More information
To discuss suitability for the project, contact [email protected]

Personal profile

Research interests

Social structure in animal groups affects how robust a population is to stresses such as disease, disturbance by humans, or habitat fragmentation. Effects of environmental change on animal social structure are challenging to study but have wide reaching implications for conservation and management. I use ants as a model system which can be manipulated at both the individual and group levels, allowing thorough exploration of the rules governing social behaviour and interaction with the environment. Understanding social structure is essential to for the conservation of any social species, and is also essential for successful control of those social species which have become invasive pests. I use a range of ant species for my research, including the ecologically dominant Formica rufa group wood ants and the invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus.

I combine controlled lab experiments, field experiments in a more natural context, and computational/analytical modelling, to investigate the organisation of social behaviours and how these relate to environmental conditions and change. I used radio-frequency identification technology to gain individual-level insights into the roles of certain ants within a colony. I collaborate on the analysis of complex patterns of behaviour with other members of the York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA). This work will help explain the mechanisms of organisation and resilience to change in a highly successful group of insects, which will provide insights into the workings of other animal social systems, and even into man-made network systems.

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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