Research Areas - Behavioural Ecology
Our research interests range from studies of the strategies used by individuals to compete for resources (food, mates, territories) to how conflicts among individuals and ecological conditions combine to influence breeding systems, population dynamics and community structure. Current studies include fieldwork on mammals, birds and insects, theoretical studies of signalling behaviour and molecular genetic work on breeding systems. The Ecology Group comprises eight academic staff, twenty post-doctoral research fellows and thirty-five PhD students. We have weekly seminars and regular lunch-time discussions.
Behavioural Ecology - Prof N B Davies
Behavioural Ecology - Prof T H Clutton Brock
Behaviour and Evolution - Dr R M Kilner
Sensory Ecology, Animal Signals, and Behaviour - Dr M Stevens
Modelling in behavioural ecology: conflict, co-operation and communication - Dr R Johnstone
Behavioural Ecology - Dr A Manica
Behavioural Ecology - Professor Nick Davies
Students are encouraged to suggest their own ideas for research. There are excellent facilities for fieldwork locally, in the surrounding fenland and also opportunities to work abroad. Recent studies include:-
- Mating systems. Field observations and experiments on behaviour, combined with DNA profiles to measure individual reproductive success, in polyandrous dunnocks, alpine accentors (Pyrénées), and jacanas (Southern India) and of Australian fruit bats.
- Cooperative breeding. The role of ecological factors and conflicts between breeders and helpers in moorhens, mesites (Madagascar), woodhoopoes (South Africa) and babblers (Australia).
- Brood parasites and their hosts. Experimental studies of cuckoo-host coevolution in Britain, Namibia and South Africa, of cowbirds and their hosts in Argentina and Costa Rica.
- Sexual selection. Studies of colour and display in Agama lizards on Mediterranean islands, with reference to species isolation.
- Life histories. Brood reduction and the influence of age on reproductive success in blackbirds.
- Communication. Parent-offspring communication in reed warblers and other cuckoo hosts, and its exploitation by cuckoos. Deceptive alarm signals by drongos used in kleptoparasitism (South Africa). Family conflicts in hornbills (South Africa).
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/bbe/Davies/Nick1.htm
Behavioural Ecology - Professor Tim Clutton-Brock
Research in my group focuses on the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of variation in animal breeding systems. We work with a wide range of animals, including insects, fish and, especially, mammals. Several studies based here use established field sites in Scotland and on the islands of Rum (red deer) and St Kilda (Soay sheep), as well as in Uganda (banded mongoose) and South Africa (meerkats), where we are able to recognise large samples of individuals and have monitored their growth and breeding success from birth.
Students are encouraged to suggest their own ideas for research, either on our established study populations or on species of their choice.
Recent studies include:-
- Parental strategies - recent research has explored the evolution of male versus female parental care (in assassin bugs, rheas and cichlid fish); the division of parental investment among offspring and the cost of rearing sons and daughters; adaptive strategies of sex ratio variation, and the resolution of conflicts of interest between parents and young.
- Co-operative breeding - projects in Uganda and South Africa are currently exploring the evolution of co-operative breeding in social mongooses, focusing on the division of labour among helpers and reproductives and the hormonal controls of cooperative behaviour.
- Coercion, punishment, feuding and reconciliation - theoretical work has explored the evolution of complex social interactions between group members, concentrating on patterns of interaction commonly observed in primates. Empirical work has investigated the costs of sexual coercion.
- The effects of breeding systems on population dynamics - recent work has explored the consequences of contrasts in breeding systems for population regulation and stability, using long-term demographic records for contrasting systems.
- Sexual selection and population dynamics - research on red deer and Soay sheep (using DNA analysis) has examined the extent to which changes in population density affect the distribution of male success, the intensity of sexual selection and the heritability of fitness through the male line. Theoretical work has investigated the factors controlling the relative intensity of competition for mates in the two sexes.
- Immigration, emigration and the frequency of inbreeding - long-term studies of red deer, sheep and meerkats have explored the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of emigration and the frequency of inbreeding.
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/larg/pages/index.html
Behaviour and Evolution - Dr Rebecca Kilner
Our research focuses on social evolution, animal communication and co-evolution and uses animal families as model systems for experimental analysis. We study conflict, cooperation and communication in several different bird species including local blackbird, blue tit and great tit populations in Britain and the Hihi (or Stitchbird) in New Zealand. Most of our work on co-evolution examines the interactions between the Australian Chalcites cuckoos and their hosts. Our most recent work on social evolution focuses on burying beetles in the laboratory and in the field near Cambridge. Burying beetles raise their young on the flesh of a dead vertebrate and protect the carcass from microbial rivals by smearing the flesh with anti-bacterial exudates. We are currently investigating how adults cooperate to mount this social immune response.
We encourage prospective students to devise their own research projects, but we are happy to provide specific guidance as well.
Recent PhD students have worked on:-
- The evolution and design of animal signals: by using field experiments and comparative analyses to explain variation among individuals and among species in the design of the nestling begging display
- Maternal effects: by using field experiments and hormonal analyses to investigate how investment in the egg influences subsequent conflicts of interest in the family
- Conflicts of interest within the family: by using field experiments to determine how parent-offspring conflict and sexual conflict are resolved
- Ageing: by using laboratory experiments on burying beetles to determine how developmental conditions influence lifespan, and to identify sex differences in patterns of senescence
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/bbe/Kilner/Rebecca1.htm
Sensory Ecology, Animal Signals, and Behaviour - Dr Martin Stevens
My research spans several subject areas, but most notably animal coloration, visual perception, and behaviour. I use a range of study systems to investigate the evolution of visual signalling, including anti-predator coloration (camouflage, warning coloration, eyespots), brood parasitism, and mate choice. I am also interested in developing new techniques to study vision and visual signals. My research often makes links with aspects of experimental psychology and computer vision.
Work can be field based (UK and abroad), lab based, or both, and a mixture of experimental and modelling approaches. I am happy for students to suggest ideas for research projects, but current areas of interest include:
- Arms races, visual signalling, and brood parasitism, including egg mimicry and chick coloration
- Animal camouflage, including how this is optimised under different conditions and the visual mechanisms involved
- Multifunctional signals – how animals use the same pattern to achieve multiple functions (e.g. combining camouflage, warning signals, sexually selected signals)
- Interactions between behaviour and visual signals
- The relationship between animal coloration and the visual system(s) of the principal receiver(s)
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/bbe/Stevens/Martin1.htm
Modelling in behavioural ecology: conflict, co-operation and communication - Dr Rufus Johnstone
My research involves the use of optimality modelling and game theory to predict how animals behave under different social and ecological conditions.
Particular areas of interest include:-
- Communication and the design of animal signals (including sexual signalling, dominance display, communication between parents and offspring and mimicry).
- Sexual conflict and mate choice (including the tactics of choice, sex differences in mating behaviour and the evolution of sexual coercion and manipulation).
- Conflict and co-operation in social groups (including reproductive skew, dominance testing and eavesdropping).
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/beg/people/johnstone.html
Behavioural Ecology - Dr Andrea Manica
My research focuses on understanding the causes, patterns and consequences of animal movement. Currently, I mostly work on the solution of conflicts in groups of individuals for which coordination is beneficial. Using sticklebacks as a model system, we have been able to show that personality plays an important role in the emergence of leaders and followers within pairs of foraging individuals. Taking advantage of a new analytical framework we developed, we were able to infer the exact rules that individuals use to respond to each others' behaviour and showed that leadership is the result of social feedback, with strong leaders inspiring faithful followership and good followers improving the initiative of their leaders. We now plan to look at more complicated coordination problems, and this topic would be very suitable as a PhD project.
- Individual Research Groups
- Behavioural Ecology Group
- Behaviour and Evolution Group
- Evolutionary Ecology Group
- Large Animal Research Group