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| Dr
Rose Thorogood
Tel: +44
(0) 1223 767 130
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 336 676
Email: rt303 at cam.ac.uk
Position
held: NERC Post-doctoral Research Associate working with Nick
Davies
Phyllis
and Eileen Gibbs Travelling Research Fellow, Newnham College
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| Research |
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| My
research concerns interactions between individuals, and how these
have and will shape the evolution of their behaviour. By investigating
visual and vocal behaviours, I aim to understand the role of signals
and information exchange within families and how these channels
of information might be manipulated. |
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| 1.
SIGNALS AND THE FAMILY
Families
provide an ideal situation for investigating the evolution
of communication. Together with Becky
Kilner and John
Ewen (Institute of Zoology, London), I look at begging
signals in avian families, predominantly with the Hihi
(Notiomystis cincta), a threatened bird from
New Zealand. I am especially interested in mouth colour,
and how this may or may not be related to the availability
of carotenoids in the diet. While carotenoids are important
for immune function (as antioxidants), they also provide
pigmentation for colourful integuments such as plumage
and (potentially) gape colour. However, animals cannot
synthesise carotenoids themselves so access to carotenoid-laden
foods may regulate the expression of these signals, making
them “honest”. Perhaps most interesting, is
how the carotenoid-environment of the parents mediates
their responses to the signals of their young. Carotenoids
promote parents’ future reproduction, and this affects
the sensitivity of their response to their current offspring’s
colourful signals (Thorogood, Ewen, & Kilner 2011).
Therefore, future life-history strategies determine current
behaviour. |
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6-day old Hihi nestlings |
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2.
EXPLOITATION OF SIGNALS
Interactions
between parents and offspring are further complicated
when parents are fooled into caring for offspring that
are not their own. How do brood-parasitic cuckoos fool
their hosts into warming their eggs and raising their
young? Do these strategies differ with host-specificity?
As a Research Fellow at Newnham College I investigate
how and why the Shining bronze cuckoo (Chalcites lucidus)
uses visual and vocal mimicry of its sole host in New
Zealand, the Grey warbler (Gerygone igata). Shining
cuckoos lay a dark green egg which is non-mimetic to the
host’s. With Becky
Kilner and Justin Rasmussen (University of Canterbury),
we are also asking, why are the eggs of this cuckoo cryptic? |
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Newly hatched Grey Warbler (top & left) and Shining
Cuckoo (bottom) nestlings |
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3.
INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND SOCIAL LEARNING
In parasite-host
interactions, there may be many lines of defence outside of
the nest. As a NERC-funded Post-doctoral Research Associate
with Prof. Nick Davies, we
are investigating how interactions between individuals can protect
the host’s reproductive investment. Cuckoos use visual
signals to mimic the Sparrowhawk, a host predator. Previous
research by Nick Davies and Justin
Welbergen has shown that the Reed warbler (Acrocephalus
scirpaceus) transmits information about the risk of cuckoo
(Cuculus canorus) parasitism via social learning. We
are now investigating how specific this response is, asking
whether the information exchanged simply increases risk awareness,
or facilitates specific recognition. |
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4.
PLANT SIGNALS AND ANIMAL POLLINATION
I am also
interested in interactions at the interface of plants and animals.
Sandra
Anderson (University of Auckland) and I are exploring how
plant-pollinator mutualisms change with the introduction and
naturalisation of both in foreign environments. We compare behaviours
of birds in New Zealand and the UK to understand how introduced
European species adapt as pollinators in modified environments. |
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Prior
to Cambridge:
I
have worked with Hihi since 2002, for my MSc thesis at
the University of Auckland, NZ with Assoc. Prof. Dianne
Brunton (now Massey University), and as a research assistant
to Dr. John Ewen of the Institute of Zoology, London.
I have also been involved in several translocations of
various different species of threatened and endangered
New Zealand birds, including the re-introduction of Hihi
to Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, the first
population of Hihi on mainland New Zealand since the 1880s.
I remain interested in Hihi conservation and exploring
the role that behavioural ecology might have to inform
conservation decisions. |
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| Selected
Publications (click
here for a complete list) |
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- Thorogood,
R., Ewen, J.G. and Kilner, R.M. (2011) Sense and sensitivity:
responsiveness to offspring signals varies with the parents’
potential to breed again, Proc R Soc B.
- Ewen,
J.G., Thorogood, R., Armstrong, D.P. (2011) Demographic consequences
of adult sex ratio in a reintroduced hihi population, J
Anim Ecol.
- Armstrong,
D.P., Castro, I., Perrott, J.K., Ewen, J.G., Thorogood, R.
(2010) Impacts of pathogenic disease and native predators
on threatened native species, NZ J Ecol.
- Ewen,
J.G., Thorogood, R., Brekke, P., Cassey, P., Karadas, F.,
Armstrong, D.P. (2009) Maternally invested carotenoids compensate
costly ectoparasitism in the hihi, Proc Nat Acad Sci U.S.A.
106, 12798-12802.
- Thorogood,
R., Brunton, D., Castro, I. (2009) Simple techniques for sexing
nestling hihi (Notiomystis cincta) in the field,
NZ J Zool 36, 115–121.
- Thorogood,
R., Kilner, R. M., Karadas, F., Ewen, J. G. (2008) Spectral
mouth colour of nestlings changes with carotenoid availability,
Funct Ecol 22, 1044-1051.
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