Foraging Ecology Research Group

It’s been a really exciting month, from conferences and visitors, to preprints and papers! We started the month off at the tail end of the European Congress of Entomology (which we summarised our experience of in a separate post and in last month’s FERG News). Read on to find out where we ended up after Continue reading "FERG News August 2026"

After months of planning and build-up, we just held the first Dietary Interactions in Ecology Through Sequencing (DIETS) Symposium! Mia and Jordan co-ran the symposium with Andreanna Welch and Beth Jetson from Durham University – a dream team! It went incredibly well and we had an absolute blast. Read below for some of our thoughts, Continue reading "FERG co-hosts the first DIETS Symposium at Dur…

Check out this new preprint, now live on bioRxiv, led by Will as an output from his previous work at Cardiff University! Will’s research at Cardiff University was based on rot-hole invertebrates, much like Jordan’s was before he started his PhD. What a small world! Local and biogeographical determinants of the diversity and structure of Continue reading "New preprint: Local and biogeographical de…

Check out this new paper, led by long-time FERG-friend Max Tercel, now published in Molecular Ecology! Intraguild interactions drive the dynamics of a complex community of globally invasive ant species Invasive species adversely affect biodiversity, but little is known about how ecologically similar invaders interact. Such intraguild interactions may drive non-native community dynamics and their …

Check out this new preprint, now live on EcoEvoRxiv, co-led by Mia and Ben alongside seven other members of FERG (Will, Rosy, Rebecca, Jack, Bethan, Lucy and Jordan): Insects as agents of national security: entomological biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse in agriculture and forestry threaten geopolitical stability This paper is a collaborative output from one Continue reading "New preprint:…

Check out this new preprint, now live on EcoEvoRxiv, led by Jordan alongside an all-star team of network ecologists, nutritional geometrists and trophic ecologists: Bridging nutritional geometry and network ecology to quantify the robustness of nutritional networks Understanding the robustness and resilience of ecological networks is key to managing ecosystems and mitigating biodiversity loss. Si…

It’s been an incredibly busy time with conferences, meetings, fieldwork and publications, hence a later-than-usual entry to FERG News! Check out some of what we’ve been up to in June below, and we’ll have an equally exciting update to share in the coming weeks for July too! If you want to keep up with our Continue reading "FERG News July 2026"

A few of us recently took to the European Congress of Entomology in Tours, France to present our work, meet some exceptional entomologists from around the world and enjoy the atmosphere of a thriving hub of international research! Read below for some of the highlights! Presentations Throughout the conference, Ben, Mia, Rosy and Jordan all Continue reading "FERG at the European Congress of Entomol…

Check out this new preprint, now live on bioRxiv, led by Bram Vanthournout as part of a massive intercontinental investigation of urbanisation effects on spider ecology and morphology: Urbanization effects are trait-specific and city-dependent across a widespread spider’s global range Urban environments impose strong selective pressures through biotic and abiotic factors, driving changes in behav…

Check out this new paper, led collaboratively by Rosy and Rebecca, now published in Bulletin of Entomological Research! Arthropod predator nutrient content changes with crop sowing period with implications for biocontrol The paper shows that the sowing time of crops can have important nutritional consequences for their arthropod communities, with the macronutrient contents of arthropod Continue r…

Check out this new preprint, now live on EcoEvoRxiv, from a Scottish Government-commissioned collaboration across Forest Research, Fera Science Ltd. and Newcastle University, led by Kyle Miller: Evaluating the potential of molecular dietary analysis of predators for the detection of emerging plant pests Monitoring plant pests is crucial for maximising yields across agricultural and forest Continu…

Spring has now truly sprung, just as many of us have swung into action for this year’s field experiments! We’ve had a few other year-round or winter-based field experiments wrapping up too, and it’s been a busy month for papers, preprint and protocols! There’s still time to register for Rosy’s online talk about her PhD Continue reading "FERG News June 2026"

Check out this new paper that Jordan led with an incredible team of researchers across Newcastle University (including our very own Ben Hawthorne) and the University of Innsbruck, now published in Molecular Ecology Resources! Dietary RNA: integration of RNA data offers a potential paradigm shift for molecular dietary analyses It’s been just over two decades Continue reading "NEW PAPER: Dietary RN…

Check out this new preprint, now live on EcoEvoRxiv, from a collaboration co-led by Jordan and Yuval Cohen: Expanding the sentinel approach through multimodal integration: resolving underlying ecological processes with eDNA and computer vision Sentinel approaches can quantify in-field ecological interactions and processes in a semi-controlled way, also reducing bias and labour. The assignment of …

Check out this new paper published as an output of the Group on Insect Nutrition To Open Nutritional Innovative Challenges (GIN-TONIC) Cost Action! Jordan contributed to this alongside an incredible team of researchers spanning 15 institutions and 12 countries, and it’s now published in Journal of Insects as Food and Feed! Knowledge gaps in feeding Continue reading "NEW PAPER: Knowledge gaps in f…

A slightly belated update this month as we get things started for most of our field experiments for the calendar year and wrap up most of the marking for the academic year! There’s plenty going on, and even more to come soon! If you want to keep up with our updates every month (and occasional Continue reading "FERG News May 2026"

With fieldwork countdowns ticking and teaching slowly starting to wrap up for the academic year, we’ve had loads of exciting things coming into full bloom this month, much like the flowering plants dotting the trees, parks and roadsides throughout Newcastle! If you want to keep up with our updates every month (and in between), you Continue reading "FERG News April 2026"

We’re really excited to share the imminent launch of a new journal published by the Royal Entomological Society and Wiley: Approaches in Entomology! Insect science is a dynamic and continually evolving field, driven equally by the methods we develop, critique and use, and the philosophies that guide our investigations, interpretations and applications. Advances in technology Continue reading "Jor…

Check out this new preprint, now live on EcoEvoRxiv, from an ongoing collaboration with Forest Research on oak processionary moth biocontrol: Reintroducing a nationally extinct predator, the forest caterpillar hunter (Calosoma sycophanta), for biocontrol of the invasive oak processionary (Thaumetopoea processionea) in Britain: considerations, benefits and risks The oak processionary moth (Thaumet…

Check out this new paper that Will led alongside his PhD supervisory team across Newcastle University, Fera Science Ltd and Nottingham Trent University! Ecoacoustics for context-rich direct and indirect trophic interaction data and ecological network construction Ecoacoustics can be used to monitor biodiversity across massive spatiotemporal scales, including in ecologically cryptic systems like s…