Social insects, like the bumblebee, are essential to global agroecosystems, contributing to the pollination services needed for roughly a third of consumable crops. Given their global importance, and evidence for declines of pollinators, it is imperative to better understand how insects respond to ecological challenges- including overuse of pesticides and increased competition. These stressors are encoded by insect sensory systems, which can in turn affect interactions between individuals and the resultant collective decisions.

The biosphere is a network of interacting species that connects organisms across all scales, from microbes to mammals. Knowledge of the mechanisms underlying these relationships, and the evolutionary forces that shape them, is fragmentary. My lab has pioneered the study of rove beetles (Staphylinidae) as a model clade to break open basic problems in organismal interactions. Most of the >66,000 known rove beetle species are free-living predators, found in leaf litter and soil habitats spanning the globe.