Curriculum Vitae

Qualifications

• PhD 1975 Department of Zoology, University of Leeds
• BSc 1971 Department of Zoology, University of Leeds

Employment

• 2005-Present - Reader in Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Membership of Professional Bodies

• Member of the British Ecological Society
• Fellow of Royal Entomological Society

Other Qualifications

• ‘A’ Ringer in BTO ringing scheme

Date of Birth: 24 September 1949

Family Status: Married with 3 children

Primary Research Interests

My two primary interests are in a) the nutritive ecology of herbivores and saprophages, asking how their digestive and foraging strategies affect their life histories and population dynamics, and b) predicting how global climate change may alter the behaviour and population ecology of invertebrates.

I am currently working on several aspects of plant/animal interactions:

• Indirect interactions comparing a) the responses of predators (coccinelid beetles) and parasitoids to volatiles emitted in response to aphids feeding on Brassicas and Arabidopsis and b) the effects of leaf volatiles on the patrolling behaviour of Azteca and Allomerus ants in mutualistic associations with Cordia in Amazonian rainforests.
• Herbivory: a) How secondary chemical defences and nitrogen content of plants influence herbivore foraging strategies. We have developed a compartmental toxicological model to analyse how toxins constrain herbivores and also suggest that asynchrony in nitrogen and secondary chemical leaf-age profiles can form a defensive strategy against generalist herbivores. b) The central importance of nitrogen content as a driving factor in food selection by both vertebrates and invertebrates. We are currently developing multi-currency models to predict feeding site selection under constraints of nutrient limitation, predation and thermal ecology.

I am investigating the adaptive value of phenotypic plasticity in life history traits in relation to changes in both food quality and temperature by a combination of field studies and laboratory experiments.

Comparing sites differing in the availability and predictability of high quality food for isopods shows that micro-evolution has lead to changes in the balance of key resource allocation trade-offs such as between size and age at maturity and brood size/offspring size. We have found that for orthoptera there is an important interaction between food quality and temperature on life histories and that the costs of resource allocation trade-offs only become apparent under limiting food quality conditions.

We have found that phenotypic plasticity of life histories to temperature varies between ecotypes from geographically separate sites with different climates and are using data from analyses of both latitudinal gradients and longitudinal clines in continentality to paramatise a model to predict how fitness of different orthopteran ecotypes will be affected by predicted changes in global climate.

We are also looking at effects of global climate change on isopods as key system regulators of decomposer processes trying to predict how changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation events affect their interactions with micro-organisms, foraging behaviour and population dynamics, hence how global climate change is likely to affect regulation of microbially mediated carbon dioxide emissions from soils.

Other Interests

• Academic - Conservation, Commons, Papyrus swamps
• Relaxation - Mountains, Theatre, Gardening

Teaching Interests

I teaching courses on Field Ecology, Plant-Animal Interactions and Soil Biology.

Publications

Girling, R.D., Hassall, M. & Turner, J.G. (2007). Do turning biases by the 7-spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata, increase their foraging efficiency? Behaviour 144: 143-163. DOI:

Hassall, M., Adl, S., Berg, M., Griffiths, B. & Scheu, S. (2006). Soil fauna-microbe interactions: towards a conceptual framework for research. European Journal of Soil Biology 42: S54-S60. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejsobi.2006.07.007.

Moss, A. & Hassall, M. (2006). Effects of disturbance on the biodiversity and abundance of isopods in temperate grasslands. European Journal of Soil Biology 42: S254-S268. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejsobi.2006.07.013.

Hassall, M., Jones, D.T., Taiti, S., Latipi, Z., Sutton, S.L. & Mohammed, M. (2006). Biodiversity and abundance of terrestrial isopods along a gradient of disturbance in Sabah, East Malaysia. European Journal of Soil Biology 42: S197-S207. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejsobi.2006.07.002. 

Walters, R.J., Hassall, M., Telfer, M.G., Hewitt, G.M. & Palutikof, J.P. (2006). Modelling dispersal of a temperate insect in a changing climate. Proc. R. Soc. B. 273: 2017-2023. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3542.

Maclean, I.M.D., Hassall, M., Boar, R.R. & Lake, I.R. (2006). Effects of disturbance and habitat loss on papyrus-dwelling passerines. Biological Conservation 131: 349-358. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2005.12.003.

Girling, R.D., Hassall, M., Turner, J.G. & Poppy, G.M. (2006). Behavioural responses of the aphid parasitoid Diaeretielle rapae to volatiles from Arabidopsis thaliana induced by Myzus persicae. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 120: 1-9. DOI: 10.1111/j.1570-7458.2006.00423.x.

Edwards, D.P., Hassall, M., Sutherland, W.J. & Yu, D.W. (2006). Assembling a mutualism: Ant symbionts locate their host plants by detecting volatile chemicals. Insectes Sociaux 53: 172-176. DOI: 10.1007/s00040-006-0855-z.

Walters, R.J. & Hassall, M. (2006). The temperature-size rule in ectotherms: May a general explanation exist after all? American Naturalist 167: 510-523. DOI: 10.1086/501029.

Edwards, D.P., Hassall, M., Sutherland, W.J. & Yu, D.W. (2006). Selection for protection in an ant-plant mutualism: host sanctions, host modularity, and the principal-agent game. Proc. R. Soc. B. 273: 595-602. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3273.

Hassall, M., Walters, R.J., Telfer, M. & Hassall, M.R.J. (2006). Why does a grasshopper have fewer larger offspring at its range limits? Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: 267-276. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.00967.x.

Hassall, M. & Lane, S.L. (2005) Partial feeding preferences and the profitability of winter feeding sites for brent geese. Basic and Applied Ecology 6: 559-570. DOI: 10.1016/j.baae.2005.04.010.