Dr Iain Farrell
Honorary Research Associate
Department
Team
Specialism
Phytochemistry, chromatography, mass spectrometry, NMR, structure determination of secondary plant metabolites.
I work on the chemistry of plants and carry out the isolation, structure determination and quantitative measurements of secondary metabolites especially in pollen and nectar.
I recently published a quantitative chemical analysis of the nectar and pollen of multiple specimens of thirty bee-friendly plants collected in New England. Part of this work demonstrated that the floral rewards from cultivars differ significantly from those of wild species. I am carrying our gram scale isolations of phytosterols from pollen and Royal Jelly for dietary experiments with bee colonies. I also analyse the gut chemistry of malarial mosquitos to identify their floral diets.
- BA, University of Oxford, 1972
- MA, University of Oxford, 1975
- DPhil, University of Oxford, 1977
- PGCE, University of Oxford, 1977
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Farmer Research Network: assessments of botanical pesticides to augment above and below ground ecosystem services for crop resilience
Improving food security in Malawi and Tanzania through the optimization of plant-based pest management through Farmer Research Networks (FRNs)
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The macronutrient regulation of adult worker honey bees
Studying naturally occurring pollen nutrients to identify the most important dietary components for honey bees.
Palmer-Young, E. C., Farrell, I. W., Adler, L. S., Milano, N. J., Egan, P. A., Junker, R. R. & Stevenson, P. C. (2019).
Chemistry of floral rewards: intra- and interspecific variability of nectar and pollen secondary metabolites across taxa
Ecological Monographs 89: 1–23.
Egan, P. A., Adler, L. S., Irwin, R. E., Farrell, I. W., Palmer-Young, E. C. & Stevenson, P. C. (2018).
Crop Domestication Alters Floral Reward Chemistry With Potential Consequences for Pollinator Health.
Frontiers in Plant Science 9: 1–14.
Barlow, S. E., Wright, G. A., Ma, C., Barberis, M., Farrell, I. W., Marr, E. C. & Stevenson, P. C. (2017).
Distasteful Nectar Deters Floral Robbery.
Current Biology 27: 2552–2558.e3.
Tiedeken, E. J., Egan, P. A., Stevenson, P. C., Wright, G. A., Brown, M. J. F., Power, E. F., Farrell, I. W. & Stout, J. C. (2016).
Nectar chemistry modulates the impact of an invasive plant on native pollinators.
Functional Ecology 30: 885–893.
Stevenson, P. C., Green, P. W. C., Farrell, I. W., Brankin, A., Mvumi, B. M. & Belmain, S. R. (2018).
Novel Agmatine Derivatives in Maerua edulis With Bioactivity Against Callosobruchus maculatus, a Cosmopolitan Storage Insect Pest
Frontiers in Plant Science 9: 1–9.
King, T. J., Farrell, I. W., Halsall, T. G. & Thaller, V. (1977).
Alliacolide, a new bicyclic sesquiterpene epoxy-lactone with a novel carbon skeleton from cultures of the fungus Marasmius alliaceus (Jacques ex Fr.)Fr; X-ray structure.
Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical Communications, 20: 727–728.