Professor Nick Davies FRS

Tel: +44 (0) 1223 334 405
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 336 676
Email: nbd1000 at hermes.cam.ac.uk

Position held: Professor of Behavioural Ecology

My research is in Behavioural Ecology, the study of behavioural adaptations in relation to ecological and social conditions.  In theory, natural selection should favour behavioural strategies which best promote an individual's ability to pass copies of its genes on to future generations.  This creates conflicts in animal populations, not only conflicts between rivals for territories and mates but also conflicts within seemingly harmonious ventures such as male-female pairs cooperating to rear offspring.  My work attempts to elucidate the nature of these conflicts and to understand how they are resolved.

My current work is concerned with two topics.  First, how does social organisation within a population reflect conflicts within and between the sexes?  Field observations and experiments with colour-ringed populations of Dunnocks Prunella modularis (Cambridge Botanic Garden) and Alpine Accentors P. collaris (Pyrenées) have shown how male-female conflicts give rise to variable mating systems and variable patterns of parental care.  Second, a study of a breeding conflict between species, namely between the Cuckoo Cuculus canorus and its hosts, has revealed co-evolution of adaptations and counteradaptations at both the egg and chick stage.  Current work is aimed at understanding how cuckoo chicks manipulate their hosts by their begging behaviour, and is being extended to other species of cuckoos.

I encourage PhD students and post-docs to come up with their own ideas for research.  Recent topics include: deceptive signalling by drongos; parental care in hornbills; cooperative breeding in Australian babblers; sexual selection in tooth-billed bowerbirds; cuckoo-host coevolution.

• Thorogood, R. & Davies, N.B. 2012. Cuckoos combat socially transmitted defences of reed warbler hosts with a plumage polymorphism. Science, 337, 578- 580.
• Davies, N.B., Krebs, J.R. & West, S.A. 2012. An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology, Fourth edition. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Davies, N.B. 2011. Cuckoo adaptations: trickery and tuning. J.Zool. 284, 1-14
• Davies, N.B. & Welbergen, J.A. 2009 Social transmission of a host defense against cuckoo parasitism. Science 324, 1318-1320.
• Welbergen, J.A. & Davies, N.B. 2009. Strategic variation in mobbing as a front line of defense against brood parasitism. Current Biology 19, 235-240.
• Davies, N.B., Madden, J.R., Butchart, S.H.M. & Rutila, J. 2006. A host-race of the cuckoo Cuculus canorus with nestlings attuned to the parental alarm calls of the host species. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B: 273: 693-699.
• Gibbs, H.L., Sorenson, M.D., Marchetti, K., Brooke, M. de L., Davies, N.B. & Nakamura, H. 2000. Genetic evidence for female host-specific races of the common cuckoo. Nature 407, 183-186
• Davies, N.B. 2000. Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. pp.310. T. & A.D. Poyser.
• Kilner, R.M., Noble, D.G. & Davies, N.B. 1999. Signals of need in parent-offspring communication and their exploitation by the common cuckoo. Nature, 397: 667-672.