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Email: j.r.s.westrip at sms.ed.ac.uk James Westrip is now a PhD student in the Wild Evolution Group at the University of Edinburgh.
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worked with Dr Claire Spottiswoode
as a voluntary researcher, conducting data entry and analyses based
on large unpublished dataset on breeding biology of African birds
(in collaboration with the Natural History Museum’s Bird Group
at Tring). Questions will include analyses of hatching success and
yolk antioxidants in relation to various ecological factors, changes
in breeding phenology, and various aspects of brood parasitism, to
be analysed in a phylogenetic context using CAIC-R. I also assisted Dr Mary Caswell Stoddard and Dr Martin Stevens investigating the role of size and shape mimicry in eggs of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) with its hosts as a possible part of the host-parasite co-evolution. I have a broad interest in avian behavioural and conservation research, with particular interest in social and breeding behaviours of birds as well as the conservation of behaviour that may relate to the possible alteration of animal behaviour with changing population sizes. Prior Research & Experience I graduated from Cambridge in 2011 with a BA in Natural Sciences (Zoology). During my Bachelors I conducted several research projects. Work that I carried out in the field included a project looking into dragonfly distribution and density relative to vegetation characteristics (e.g. shade and non-native vegetation presence) along a river in the south of England. Another field-based project I carried out investigated inter- and intra-specific foraging differences in three species of wading bird feeding together on an East Anglian mudflat. This utilised focal watches of individual black-tailed godwits (Limosa limosa), oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) and redshanks (Tringa totanus), aged by visual identification, to investigate species and age specific differences in foraging method, efficiency and diet. I also carried out a large data-analysis project on the values of modified tropical landscapes using a collated dataset to assess the impacts of forest conversion to coffee and cocoa agroforestry of varying intensity on relative bird abundances, and assessing whether certain species specific features such as forest dependence, red list category etc. could explain the observed population differences. In 2010 I also was a research assistant member of an Operation Wallacea expedition to Madagascar to conduct a species biodiversity assessment of the Mahamavo dry deciduous forest. |
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| James Westrip |
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Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge
CB2 3EJ, U. K.