Ben Ashby is a NERC Independent Research Fellow at the University of Bath. He holds a Master of Mathematics (MMath) from the University of Warwick (2010) and a DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford (2014). He received the Thomas Henry Huxley Award and Marsh Prize from the Zoological Society of London for his DPhil thesis (2014).
His research is interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of mathematics and biology, focusing on the interplay between the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases and their hosts. He addresses questions on a broad range of topics, from the role of genetics and the environment in evolution, to sexual selection and mating behaviour, to the evolution of sociality.
Experience
2016–present
Research fellow, University of Bath
2015–present
Visiting scholar, University of California, Berkeley
2014–2016
Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Exeter
Education
2014
University of Oxford, DPhil
2010
University of Warwick, MMath
Publications
2017
Competing species leave many potential niches unfilled, Nature Ecology & Evolution
2017
Multi-mode fluctuating selection in host-parasite coevolution, Ecology Letters
2017
Friendly foes: the evolution of host protection by a parasite, Evolution Letters
2017
The effect of extrinsic mortality on genome size evolution in prokaryotes, ISME
2016
The diversity-generating benefits of a prokaryotic adaptive immune system, Nature
2015
Population mixing promotes arms race host-parasite coevolution, Proceedings of the Royal Society B
2015
Diversity and the maintenance of sex by parasites, Journal of Evolutionary Biology
2015
Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies, PNAS
2014
Spatial structure mitigates fitness costs in host-parasite coevolution, The American Naturalist
2014
Effects of epistasis on infectivity range during host-parasite coevolution, Evolution
2014
Parasitic castration promotes coevolutionary cycling but also imposes a cost on sex, Evolution
2013
Sexually transmitted infections in polygamous mating systems, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
2013
Pathogen selection drives nonoverlapping associations between HLA loci, PNAS