Currently I am focused on completing a diverse portfolio of books, including a short series on individual contemporary British artists inspired by nature, on the purpose and function of taxonomy, on butterfly biology, on the higher classification of butterflies, on particular 18th century entomologists, and, most substantially, a work on worldviews, values and attitudes to biodiversity. I am continuing with a number of collaborative research papers on the systematics of various groups of tropical butterflies, and the butterflies of specific regions (notably Tanzania, Bali, Maluku and the Pacific). A special project for 2012, following a meeting that I organised at the Linnean Society on 8th September 2011, will be to act as Guest Editor for a special edition of the Society's Biological Journal, concerning the role and importance of behaviour in evolution. I am also sampling and surveying Tipulidae, Limoniidae and certain other Diptera at various sites in East Kent.

Research interests

• Systematics, specialising on the taxonomy, biogeography, general biology and evolution of butterflies, and also nematocerous Diptera
• History of entomology, especially 18th century
• Since 1990, biodiversity and conservation evaluation
• Since 2005 (funded by NESTA 2005–2008), worldviews, values and attitudes to biodiversity

International/national activities

• Chairman, North American Butterfly Association Names Committee, 2012–
• Guest Editor, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012
• Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Geographical and Life Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2010–
• Associate Editor, Systematics and Biodiversity (Taylor & Francis), 2004–
• Doctor of Science (honoris causa), University of Copenhagen, 2003
• Visiting Research Fellow, DICE, 1997–2000
• Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 1993–1994
• Fieldwork: 5 months Africa (1972); 4 months Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea (1980, 1981); 2 months Indonesia (1985, Royal Entomological Society of London Project Wallace expedition); 2 weeks Tanzania (2001), 1 week Mexico (2006)

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Selected Publications

Vane-Wright, R.I. 2009. Planetary awareness, worldviews and the conservation of biodiversity.In Kellert, S.R. & Speth, J.G. (eds), The Coming Transformation. Values to sustain human and natural communities, pp. 353–382. New Haven: Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Vane-Wright, R.I. 2009. Lives of meaning: organismal intelligence and the origin of design in nature. In Quenby, J. & MacDonald Smith, J. (eds), Intelligent Faith, pp. 23–48. Ropley, Hants: O Books.

Vane-Wright, R.I. & Hughes, H.W.D. 2005. The Seymer Legacy. Henry Seymer and Henry Seymer Jnr of Dorset, and their entomological paintings, with a catalogue of Butterflies and Plants (1755–1783), x + 320 pp. Forrest Text, Tresaith, Ceredigion, Wales.

Vane-Wright, R.I. 1996. Identifying priorities for the conservation of biodiversity: systematic biological criteria within a socio-political framework. In K.J. Gaston (ed.), Biodiversity: a biology of numbers and difference, pp. 309–344. Blackwell, Oxford.

Vane-Wright, R.I., Humphries C.J. & Williams, P.H. 1991. What to protect?—systematics and the agony of choice. Biological Conservation 55: 235–254.

Ackery, P.R. & Vane-Wright, R.I. 1984. Milkweed butterflies: their cladistics and biology, ix+425 pp. London & New York: BMNH/Cornell UP.

 

Fuller list of publications

 

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