Michael Siva-Jothy

Michael 'Mike' Siva-Jothy is an entomologist in the UK, he is Professor of Entomology at the University of Sheffield.[1]

Michael Siva Jothy
Alma materUniversity College London (BSc) University of Oxford (PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsNagoya University, University College London, University of Sheffield

Education and career

Siva-Jothy was educated at University College London graduating with a BSc in 1981, he then did a PhD at the University of Oxford graduating in 1985.[1] He moved to Nagoya University in Japan as a Royal Society & Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow until 1989, when he moved back to the UK to work as an Agricultural and Food Research Council research associate at University College London.[1] In 1990 Siva-Jothy moved to the University of Sheffield to be a lecturer, where he has remained, progressing to Senior Lecturer and Reader, Professor in 2006 and was the Head of the Department of Plant and Amimal Sciences from 2012 to 2018.[1]

Research

Siva-Jothy's research looks at the sexual and life history traits of arthropods.[1]

He discovered the sexual behaviour of traumatic insemination in the spider species Harpactea sadistica, where males stab their palps directly into the female abdomen to transfer sperm, this was the first time the behaviour was recorded in a non-insect arthropod.[2]

Siva-Jothy looked at insect mating preference in damselflies and found, using infra red cameras, that females prefer males with a higher body temperatures, which could then lead to eggs being laid in more favourable warmer habitats.[3]

He has extensively worked on bed bugs and found that female bed bugs prepare themselves for mating, protecting themselves from sexually transmitted infections by producing lysozyme, a bacteria killing enzyme[4] and by boosting their immune system.[5] His team have also found that bed bugs will feed on human blood for 10 to 20 minutes, increasing their body weight by up to 200 percent.[6] With an international team he discovered that bed bug species have been around for at least 115 million years and surved the extinction of the dinosaurs.[7]

With an experiment on insects and humans Siva-Jothy found that the hairs on human bodies can enable us to feel parasites on us and slow down their movement so that they take longer to find a feeding site.[8]

Honours and awards

Siva-Jothy's image of a Scarce swallowtail butterfly and a Polistine wasp on a Scabius flower won first place in the Community, Population and Macroecology category of the 2013 BioMed Central's Ecology Image Competition.[9]

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References
  1. Sheffield, University of. "Professor Michael T Siva-Jothy - Academic Staff & Independent Research Fellows - People - Animal and Plant Sciences - The University of Sheffield". www.sheffield.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  2. Strickland, Eliza (30 April 2009). "A "Sadistic" Spider's Unusual Mating Habits Are Tough on the Female". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  3. Bourton, Jody (2010-05-18). "Female insects prefer hot males". BBC earth news. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  4. Carpenter, Jennifer (2011-08-30). "Bed bugs protect sperm from germs". Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  5. "Female bed bugs 'control' their immune systems ahead of mating to prevent against STIs". phys.org. 1 July 2019. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  6. Zukerman, Joel Werner and Wendy (2015-08-04). "How bed bugs offer clues about the process of evolution". ABC Radio National. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  7. Gill, Victoria (2019-05-16). "Bedbugs 'outlived the dinosaurs'". BBC news. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  8. "The semi-naked ape, or why peach fuzz makes it harder for parasites". Discover Magazine. 13 Dec 2011. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  9. Ferris, Robert. "Competition-Winning Pictures Of Life On Earth". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
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