Jeremy Thomas
Professor J A Thomas
Professor of Ecology
Professorial Fellow of New College
Contacts
| Email: | jeremy.thomas@zoo.ox.ac.uk |
| Address: | Department of Zoology, The Tinbergen Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS |
| Phone: | 01865 271258 |
Research Interests
I am interested in understanding the factors that determine change in species’ abundance, distributions and specializations. Most of my research involves studying the population, community, functional or evolutionary ecology of insects, and much was inspired by questions arising from conservation problems. The latter, in turn, have provided the opportunity to test hypotheses and predictions through large-scale, long-term field experiments, such as the restoration of endangered Maculinea (Large blue butterfly) species and associated communities to sites and landscapes across Europe. Current research themes include: (1) Describing global to local patterns of change in insect diversity, abundance & distributions. (2) The interactions and ecology of butterflies, foodplants, parasitoids and ants. (3) The evolutionary biology of myrmecophiles (insect mutualists, commensals and social parasites that interact with ants). (4) The application of research results to nature conservation, including predicting and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Other Details
I am currently a Professorial Fellow of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (NERC), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading.
Selected Publications
- Thomas, JA, Simcox, DJ, Clarke, RT (2009) Successful Conservation of a Threatened Maculinea Butterfly. Science 325, 80-83.
- Barbero, F, Thomas, JA ,Bonelli, S, Balletto, E, Schönrogge, K (2009) Queen ants make distinctive sounds that are mimicked by a butterfly social parasite. Science 323, 782-785.
- Hovestadt, T., Mitesser, O., Elmes, G.W., Thomas, J.A., Hochberg, M.E. (2007) An ESS model for the evolution of dimorphic development strategies in the social parasite Maculinea rebeli . The American Naturalist 169, 466-480
- Schönrogge, K, Gardner, M. G., Elmes, G. W., Napper, E. K.V., Simcox, D. J. Wardlaw, J. C., Breen, J. Barr, B. Knapp, J. J., Pickett, J. A., Thomas J. A. (2006) Host propagation permits extreme local adaptation in a social parasite of ants. Ecology Letters 9, 1032-1040
- Thomas, J. A. (2005) Monitoring change in the abundance and distribution of insects using butterflies and other indicator groups. Phil Trans R Soc B 360, 339-357
- Thomas, J. A., Telfer, M. G., Roy, D. B., Preston, C. D., Greenwood, J. J. D., Asher, J., Fox, R., Clarke, R.T., Lawton, J. H. (2004) Comparative losses of British butterflies, birds and plants and the global extinction crisis. Science 303: 1879-1881
- Thomas, J.A., Knapp, J.J., Akino, T, Gerty, Wakamura, S, Simcox, DJ, Wardlaw, JC & Elmes, GW. (2002) Parasitoid secretions provoke ant warfare. Nature 417: 505-506