Professor Greg Hurst

Many insects carry microbes that distort their host sex ratio, favouring the production and survival of female hosts. I work to establish:
a) How these microbes change the ecology of their host, in terms of mating system and the spread of sexually transmitted infections.
b) How they drive the evolution of their host, for instance the evolution of sex determining systems.
This work uses butterflies, lacewing, ladybird, Drosophila and Nasonia jewel wasp as model systems in the field and the laboratory.

For many insects, symbionts represent a primary line of defence against natural enemies (parasitic wasps, nematodes, viruses).
We aim to understand
-the dynamics of protective symbionts
-the way in which they are affected by variation in the environment
-the way they interact with the 'classical' immune system.

Whilst many regard microbes as pathogens that infect, replicate and then transmit on before they are cleared, microbes commonly also form persistent symbioses with their host. In some cases, the symbiosis is inherited - that is to say the microbe passes from a female host to her progeny. Unlike pathogens, microbial symbionts need systems to be retained in hosts through their life history and gain access to the host germ line. We use techniques of molecular microbiology and functional genetic manipulation of the host to understand the systems bacteria use to establish persistent symbiosis in insects and host responses.

Our model hosts systems for this work are: Nasonia wasps, Drosophila fruit flies and Galleria waxworms.
Our microbial models are the genus Arsenophonus and Spiroplasma.