Self-organised systems in animals, such as the nests of social insects, have evolved to offer advantages that support survival across diverse habitats and climates. These nests represent ideal systems to study materials and their role in dynamic physical and biological processes. This PhD project explores how active bumblebee nests maintain efficient thermoregulation, combining perspectives from multiple disciplines to uncover the mechanisms that enable this remarkable feat. The level of complexity and self-regulation in bumblebee nests raises interesting, unsolved questions that are of a general nature and apply more broadly to a wide range of species that live collectively, from bees to humans. For instance, are the adopted structures a form of biometamaterial, designed to manipulate heat?
How are efficiency, equilibrium and resilience maintained through social information, self-organisation of behaviour and space use? In social insect colonies, individual efforts are joined and balanced across a range of behavioural tasks resulting in elaborate shelters for the colony and its offspring, fine-tuned control of the nest's internal conditions, effective nest maintenance and defence. This is all achieved without a need for centralised control. Individual insects make decisions based on information gathered through interactions with nest mates and from their surroundings, including nest structures, materials and climatic conditions. Bumblebee nests are particularly suited to explore such questions and combine empirical and modelling approaches.
There is opportunity in this project to develop those and combine them where suitable. The successful candidate will join a collaborative team of supervisors with complementary interdisciplinary and methodological expertise and address innovative research questions at the interface of physics, material engineering and behavioural science. This work will make a significant contribution to the nascent field of active matter and biometamaterials where emergent material properties are governed by movement and energy exchange between components. These new types of material form an exciting and promising branch of metamaterials (an area where the University of Exeter plays a major research and leadership role in the UK) with uses across a whole range of applications, including thermal management. Adaptability of nests to changes in environments and climate determine the resilience of bee population and pollination services.
By exploring how structures and materials can meet the thermoregulatory demands of these pollinators, this project endeavours to make a meaningful contribution across materials science, ecology and environmental monitoring. We look for a candidate with a background in natural sciences, life sciences, physics or engineering, with an interest in modelling and/or experimental approaches that are motivated by the application of physics-based solutions to environmental and biological problems. The successful candidate will benefit from working within lively and interdisciplinary research environments and have access to sophisticated experimental facilities and equipment.
The work will be based on the UoE's Streatham campus; in the Exeter Bee Lab of the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB, https://psychology.exeter.ac.uk/research/centres/crab/), supervised by Professor Natalie Hempel de Ibarra, and in the Centre for Metamaterial Research and Innovation, spending time in the lab of the second supervisor Dr David Horsell (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/metamaterials) as well as interacting with the other co supervisors in the departments of Physics and Engineering.
£21,805. The studentship will provide funding of fees and a stipend of £21,805 per annum for 2026/7.
