Seirian Sumner giving her talk, "Why wasps matter", on the Our Planet Stage, during the Schools Day Programme, at New Scientist Live 2022
There's a lot more to wasps than your stripy picnic friend: wasps matter to you and the world. Wasps are incredible creatures who can make paper, disperse seeds and even turn cockroaches into zombies! Wasps control pests and might even hold a cure for cancer. Join Seirian Sumner on a journey into the secret world of wasps guaranteed to blow your mind. Seirian Sumner is a behavioural ecologist. Her work research sits at the interface of behavioural ecology, biodiversity and conservation. She uses a combination of field ecology and genomic techniques to address questions about how and why animals live in societies. She is especially interested in social wasps, and is working hard to raise the profile of these ecologically important insects, among both scientific and lay communities. As part of these efforts, she co-founded the Big Wasp Survey in 2017 ' a citizen science project designed to engage the public with the diversity and importance of social wasps in their back yard.
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Location: ExCeL London, One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London, E16 1XL
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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