Staff Profile:Dr Robbie Girling
- Name:
- Dr Robbie Girling
- Job Title:
- Lecturer in Agro-ecology and Sustainable Agriculture
- Responsibilities:
- I teach on both the BSc in Environmental Management and the BSc in Agriculture. The specific courses I contribute to are Integrated Pest Management, Ecology and Environmental Management and Methods in Ecology and Environmental Management.
- I also supervise a number of PhD students and am an undergraduate academic tutor.
- Areas of Interest:
My research focuses on understanding the ecology of insects found in both agricultural and forest ecosystems, with the ultimate aim of enhancing sustainable crop/wood production. My specific areas of expertise are plant-insect interactions, and insect behavioural and chemical ecology. I study the ecological interactions of insects that are either pests or that provide beneficial ecosystem services (pest control, pollination etc). My research to understand the ecological processes that occur amongst these groups contributes to the development of agroecological approaches for pest control, including the enhancement of natural biological control, and the development of tools for Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
I am particularly interested in anthropogenic impacts on pest and beneficial insects and on the ecosystem services that those insects provide. This can be through changes in land use management, or as a consequence of pollution, or through climate change.
My current research projects include:
The impacts of ground level air pollution on insect communication, learning, memory, neurophysiology and fitness
Many insects are dependent on a variety of olfactory cues for effective foraging, communication, mate selection and predator avoidance. The honey bee, Apis mellifera, exemplifies an insect that relies on its ability to detect, learn and respond to floral scents. Research that I am conducting in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Southampton is investigating the effects that the ground level air pollutant, diesel exhaust, have on the honey bee. We hypothesise that diesel pollution will have impacts on bees both indirectly, interfering with floral scent signals in the air and therefore reducing the capability of bees to locate floral resources (Girling et al 2013), and directly by having deleterious neurophysiological effects that will impact on their learning and memory, thereby reducing their fitness.
How agricultural management changes influence the ecology of above and below ground multitrophic arthropod-plant interactions
I am interested in how altering the type and availability of nutrients applied to cropping systems can impact upon those arthropods in the soil and those that feed upon the plant, and what consequences this has for ecosystem services and crop production. Recently there has been an increase in the adoption of anaerobic digestion technology and consequently the volume of digestate that is being produced and used to fertilise soil. In addition, a great deal of investment is being directed toward the research and development of new waste products intended to act as replacement fertilisers. Most studies assessing these products focus almost solely on the resultant crop yields that they produce, however there may be wider ecological impacts of such management changes. I am interested in the impacts that these products have on the ecology of beneficial soil arthropods, insect pests and natural enemies.
The population ecology of invasive insect pests of forestry
Global warming is altering the potential distributions of many insect species. Combined with globalisation of trade, which has led to the accidental import of potential pests, UK forestry is currently experiencing a significant increase in the numbers of invasive insect pest species. I am working in combination with Forest Research to try to understand the population ecology of invasive pests of forestry, in particular the oak processionary moth, to understand how and why they are spreading and to try to develop effective monitoring and sustainable control measures. This pest is both a threat to forestry, causing large scale defoliation of oak trees, and to public health, because its larvae shed toxic hairs, which can cause dermatitis and asthma.
I am on the editorial board of the Nature Group open access journal Scientific Reports.
- Research groups / Centres:
Centre for Agri-Environmental Research
- Publications:
-
YNumber of items: 24.
2018
- Staton, T., Walters, R., Smith, J., Chesshire, H. and Girling, R. (2018) A cost-effectiveness analysis of temperate silvoarable systems: what contribution do ecosystem services make? In: 4th European Agroforestry Conference: Agroforestry as Sustainable Land Use, 28-30 May 2018, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, pp. 297-301.
2017
- Eivazian Kary, N., Mohammadi, D. and Girling, R. (2017) New reports on dixenic associations between the symbionts of entomopathogenic nematodes, Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus, and non-symbiotic bacteria. Journal of Crop Protection, 6 (4). pp. 497-511. ISSN 2251-9041
- Fradgley, N. S., Creissen, H. E., Pearce, H., Howlett, S. A., Pearce, B. D., Döring, T. F. and Girling, R. D. (2017) Weed suppression and tolerance in winter oats. Weed Technology, 31 (5). pp. 740-751. ISSN 0890-037X doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/wet.2017.46
2015
- Lusebrink, I., Girling, R. D., Farthing, E., Newman, T. A., Jackson, C. W. and Poppy, G. M. (2015) The effects of diesel exhaust pollution on floral volatiles and the consequences for honey bee olfaction. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 41 (10). pp. 934-912. ISSN 0098-0331 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0624-4
- Lampkin, N. H., Pearce, B. D., Leake, A. R., Creissen, H., Gerrard, C. L., Girling, R., Lloyd, S., Padel, S., Smith, J., Smith, L. G., Vieweger, A. and Wolfe, M. S., (2015) The role of agroecology in sustainable intensification. Scottish Natural Heritage
2014
- Smith, J., Girling, R., Wolfe, M. S. and Pearce, B. (2014) Agroforestry: integrating apple and arable production as an approach to reducing copper use in organic and low-input apple production. In: Agriculture and the Environment X: Delivering Multiple Benefits from our Land: Sustainable Development in Practice, 15-16 Apr 2014, Edinburgh, Scotland, pp. 278-284.
2013
- Girling, R., Lusebrink, I., Farthing, E., Newman, T. A. and Poppy, G. M. (2013) Diesel exhaust rapidly degrades floral odours used by honeybees. Scientific Reports, 3. 2779. ISSN 2045-2322 doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep02779
- Hanley, M. E., Girling, R., Felix, A. E., Olliff, E. D., Newland, P. L. and Poppy, G. M. (2013) Olfactory selection of Plantago lanceolata by snails declines with seedling age. Annals of Botany, 112 (4). pp. 671-676. ISSN 1095-8290 doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mct003
- Williams, C. D., Dillon, A. B., Girling, R. and Griffin, C. T. (2013) Organic soils promote the efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes, with different foraging strategies, in the control of a major forest pest: a meta-analysis of field trial data. Biological Control, 65 (3). pp. 357-364. ISSN 1049-9644 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2013.03.013
- Girling, R., Higbee, B. S. and Cardé, R. T. (2013) The plume also rises: trajectories of pheromone plumes issuing from point sources in an orchard canopy at night. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 39 (9). pp. 1150-1160. ISSN 0098-0331 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-013-0341-9
2011
- Pope, T. W., Girling, R., Staley, J. T., Trigodet, B., Wright, D. J., Leather, S. R., van Emden, H. F. and Poppy, G. M. (2011) Effects of organic and conventional fertilizer treatments on host selection by the aphid parasitoid Diaeretiella rapae. Journal of Applied Entomology, 136 (6). pp. 445-455. ISSN 0931-2048 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0418.2011.01667.x
- Cardé, R. T., Cardé, A. M. and Girling, R. (2011) Observations on the flight paths of the day-flying moth Virbia lamae during periods of mate location: do males have a strategy for contacting the pheromone plume? Journal of Animal Ecology, 81 (1). pp. 268-276. ISSN 0021-8790 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01887.x
- Staley, J. T., Girling, R., Stewart-Jones, A., Poppy, G. M., Leather, S. R. and Wright, D. J. (2011) Organic and conventional fertilizer effects on a tritrophic interaction: parasitism, performance and preference of Cotesia vestalis. Journal of Applied Entomology, 135 (9). pp. 658-665. ISSN 0931-2048 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0418.2010.01604.x
- Girling, R., Stewart-Jones, A., Dherbecourt, J., Staley, J. T., Wright, D. J. and Poppy, G. M. (2011) Parasitoids select plants more heavily infested with their caterpillar hosts: a new approach to aid interpretation of plant headspace volatiles. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278 (1718). pp. 2646-2653. ISSN 0962-8452 doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.2725
- Fernández-Grandon, G. M., Girling, R. and Poppy, G. M. (2011) Utilizing insect behavior in chemical detection by a behavioral biosensor. Journal of Plant Interactions, 6 (2-3). pp. 109-112. ISSN 1742-9145 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17429145.2010.544778
2010
- Girling, R., Ennis, D., Dillon, A.B. and Griffin, C.T. (2010) The lethal and sub-lethal consequences of entomopathogenic nematode infestation and exposure for adult pine weevils, Hylobius abietis (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, 104 (3). pp. 195-202. ISSN 0022-2011 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2010.04.003
2008
- Girling, R. and Hassall, M. (2008) Behavioural responses of the seven-spot ladybird Coccinella septempunctata to plant headspace chemicals collected from four crop Brassicas and Arabidopsis thaliana, infested with Myzus persicae. Agricultural and Forest Entomology, 10 (4). pp. 297-306. ISSN 1461-9555 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-9563.2008.00379.x
- Zahn, D. K., Girling, R., McElfresh, J. S., Cardé, R. T. and Millar, J. G. (2008) Biology and reproductive behavior of Murgantia histrionica (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 101 (1). pp. 215-228. ISSN 0013-8746 doi: https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101[215:BARBOM]2.0.CO;2
- Girling, R., Madison, R., Hassall, M., Poppy, G. M. and Turner, J. G. (2008) Investigations into plant biochemical wound-response pathways involved in the production of aphid-induced plant volatiles. Journal of Experimental Botany, 59 (11). pp. 3077-3085. ISSN 0022-0957 doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ern163
2007
- Girling, R. and Cardé, R. T. (2007) Analysis and manipulation of the structure of odor plumes from a piezo-electric release system and measurements of upwind flight of male Almond Moths, Cadra cautella, to pheromone plumes. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 33 (10). pp. 1927-1945. ISSN 0098-0331 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-007-9349-3
- Girling, R., Turner, J. and Hassall, M. (2007) Do turning biases by the 7-spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata, increase their foraging efficiency? Behaviour, 144 (2). pp. 143-163. ISSN 1568-539X doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/156853907779947337
2006
- Girling, R. and Cardé, R. T. (2006) Analysis of the courtship behavior of the Navel Orangeworm, Amyelois transitella (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), with a commentary on methods for the analysis of sequences of behavioral transitions. Journal of Insect Behavior, 19 (4). pp. 497-520. ISSN 0892-7553 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-006-9041-4
- Girling, R., Hassall, M., Turner, J. G. and Poppy, G. M. (2006) Behavioural responses of the aphid parasitoid Diaeretiella rapae to volatiles from Arabidopsis thaliana induced by Myzus persicae. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 120 (1). pp. 1-9. ISSN 1570-7458 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1570-7458.2006.00423.x
2004
- Girling, R. (2004) Foraging strategies of natural enemies of the peach-potato aphid Myzus persicae. PhD thesis, University of East Anglia.
- Qualifications:
- BSc; PhD
