James Savage
Position: PhD Student (NERC)Email: jls59@cam.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1223 763897
Research Interests
My PhD project involves theoretical modelling to predict how individuals should invest optimally in a cooperative breeding system. Mothers invest in young prior to other members of the group, and will thus have significantly different cost functions and investment choices than fathers or helpers, as well as potentially gaining a greater amount of information about the brood. Furthermore, differences in the cost of young at early stages may have important effects on the rules governing later investment. The range of alternative options available to group members is also expected to affect the dynamics of investment in a cooperative system. While in Cambridge I hope to extend existing models of parent and helper interactions to include some of these important considerations, the effects of which are currently poorly understood.
Through fieldwork I aim to test the predictions of my models on a cooperatively breeding Australian bird, the chestnut-crowned babbler (Pomatostomus ruficeps). I will observe and experimentally manipulating the supply and demand of group investment, and also the availability of information about the brood. The observed rules and responses will provide direct support or contradiction for my theoretical work. Babblers are an excellent model system for addressing these sorts of questions, as their group size and egg investment is highly variable, and investment data can be collected in large quantities through individual passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags and detectors at breeding nests. Supervisors: Dr RA Johnstone, Dr AF Russell
Publications
- Savage, JL, Johnstone, RA, Russell, AF (in press). Maternal costs in offspring production affect investment rules in joint rearing. Behavioral Ecology. doi:10.1093/beheco/ars203
- Young, CM, Browning, LE, Savage, JL, Griffith, SC, Russell, AF (in press) No evidence for deception over allocation to brood care in a cooperative bird. Behavioral Ecology. doi:10.1093/beheco/ars137
- Browning, LE, Young, CM, Savage, JL, Russell, DJF, Barclay, H, Griffith, SC, Russell, AF (in press) Carer provisioning rules in an obligate cooperative breeder: prey type, size and delivery rate. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. doi:10.1007/s00265-012-1419-z
- Rollins, L, Browning, LE, Holleley, CE, Savage, JL, Russell, AF, Griffith, SC (2012) Building genetic networks using relatedness information: a novel approach for the estimation of dispersal and characterization of group structure in social animals. Molecular Ecology 21(7), 1727-1740
