Huge numbers of insects are hosts to parasitoid wasps, and one of the most successful groups of wasps is the Ichneumonoidea, or Darwin Wasps. Despite the ubiquity of Darwin Wasps ,they are comparatively neglected by researchers and naturalists. This talk looks at research on species limits in these wasps and how that basic taxonomic work enables new research areas in ecology and genomics.

Dr Gavin Broad is a principal curator at the Natural History Museum, London, a taxonomist specialising on Ichneumonidae, and one of the co-investigators on Darwin Tree of Life, an ambitious project to sequence the genomes of all UK species.