Ellouise "Elli" Leadbeater is an

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

in the UK. In 2019 she was appointed Professor of Ecology and Evolution at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

Education and career

Leadbeater was educated at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science in

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

in 2001 and

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

where she did a MSc in Evolutionary and Ecological Science in 2004. She was awarded her PhD in 2008 at

Queen Mary University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

having looked at "Social information use in foraging bumblebees". Leadbeater was a research fellow at the

Institute of Zoology The Institute of Zoology (IoZ) is the research division of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in England. It is a government-funded research institute specialising in scientific issues relevant to the conservation of animal species and their hab ...

and then a lecturer at

where in 2019 she was appointed Professor of Ecology and Evolution.

Research

Her research looks at insect cognition and how this is affected by the animals' environment. She has looked at how

bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gener ...

s can learn where to find nectar, by watching other bees within an arena choose a particular flower colour that bears nectar, and then choosing the same colour flower when they enter the arena. Leadbeater's team have studied the

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current co ...

waggle dance Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nect ...

, looking at the specific

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

s in the bee brain that are switched on following the dance, to see how changes in the environment affects the bee

foraging Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's Fitness (biology), fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Optimal foraging theory, Foraging theory is a branch of behaviora ...

and

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

to others. Her work has also looked at the effect of insecticide toxicity on bees and she supported the 2013 EU moratorium and later ban on neconicotinoid insecticides. Her work has shown that chemical insecticides can affect bee learning and memory, such as remembering which flowers near a colony have nectar or have been emptied. She has advised caution on new insecticide products such as

Sulfoxaflor Sulfoxaflor, also marketed as ''Isoclast'', is a systemic insecticide that acts as an insect neurotoxin. A pyridine and a trifluoromethyl compound, it is a member of a class of chemicals called sulfoximines, which act on the central nervous system ...

and her team found that the compound affected bumblebee colony reproduction, with colonies exposed to the compound not producing new queens and subsequent work showed that exposed colonies laid fewer eggs with fewer bumblebee larvae hatching.

References

External links

Royal Holloway webpage

Research lab website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leadbetter, Elli Living people Year of birth missing (living people) British ecologists British evolutionary biologists Women ecologists British women biologists Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Leiden University alumni Alumni of Queen Mary University of London Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London 21st-century British biologists 21st-century British women scientists