Professional summary

Karsten is a UKCEH Fellow whose research is focused on questions about how shared evolutionary history shapes species’ interactions, and how such interactions species distribution, but also their resilience to environmental change.

Parasitism and parasitoid-host interactions tend to be tight and to exaggerate impacts. Similarly, biological invasions are large scale natural experiments of community assembly and perturbations. Of course many such interactions are of both ecological and economical importance.

Karsten used biological invasions to study the ability to predict interactions with natural enemies native to the invaded range. He has been studying social parasites of ants, their adaptations to their life histories and variations within them. These studies involved many species of conservation status: Maculinea/Phengaris butterflies and Microdon hoverflies. He has been focusing on two study systems: trees, their associated herbivores (Cynipid gallwasps) and their natural enemies (Chalcidoid parasitoids) in tri-trophic interactions (trophic cascades or bottom - up versus top-down selection); and, ants and their social parasites. In both, understanding functional phenotypes, including chemical and acoustic communication and the morphology of defensive phenotypes allows the study of species associations in ecological and evolutionary times to assess community resilience to environmental change. 

Selected publications

Didham Raphael K. et al. , (2020), Interpreting insect declines: seven challenges and a way forward. Insect Conservation & Diversity, 13, 103-114, https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12408

Schönrogge K. et al. , (2022), Environmental factors and host genetic variation shape the fungal endophyte communities within needles of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Fungal Ecology, 57-58, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2022.101162

Sinclair Frazer H. et al. , (2015), Impacts of local adaptation of forest trees on associations with herbivorous insects: implications for adaptive forest management. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.12329/abstract

Gweon Hyun S. et al. , (2015), PIPITS: an automated pipeline for analyses of fungal internal transcribed spacer sequences from the Illumina sequencing platform. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210X.12399/abstract

Barbero, Francesca et al. , (2009), Queen ants make distinctive sounds that are mimicked by a butterfly social parasite. Science, 373, 782-785, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5915/782

Bailey, Richard et al. , (2009), Host Niches and Defensive Extended Phenotypes Structure Parasitoid Wasp Communities. PLoS Biology, 7, http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000179

Roy, Helen E. et al. , (2014), Horizon scanning for invasive alien species with the potential to threaten biodiversity in Great Britain. Global Change Biology, 20, 3859-3871, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12603/pdf

Stone, Graham N. et al. , (2012), Reconstructing community assembly in time and space reveals enemy escape in a Western Palearctic insect community. Current Biology, 22, 532-537, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.059

Field Elsa et al. , (2020), Associational resistance to both insect and pathogen damage in mixed forests is modulated by tree neighbour identity and drought. Journal of Ecology, 108, 1511-1522, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13397

Harrower C.A. et al. , (2018), Guidance for interpretation of CBD categories on introduction pathways.