Behavioural Ecology
Hannah Rowland
Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College
Email: hr325@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0)1223 331759
Put very simply, prey animals either hide from predators by blending perfectly with their backgrounds, or resembling inanimate objects like twigs, or even bird poo! Or prey have bright and highly conspicuous colours and patterns, which are warning labels that say “I am poisonous, don’t eat me”. The focus of my research is to understand the evolutionary arms race between prey animals, with their visual and chemical defences, and the visual and taste systems of foragers, adapted to overcome these defences. I combine behavioural experiments in the lab and field, observing real animals’ foraging decisions on real and artificial prey. I model animal vision to understand how birds perceive the colours and patterns of prey. I am currently focusing on the genetic, physiological and developmental factors that drive predator’s food choice.
Selected publications
- Blount, J., Rowland, H. M., Drijfhout, F., Endler, J., Inger, R., Sloggett, J., Hurst, G., Hodgson, D., Speed, M. P. (2012) How the ladybird got its spots: effects of resource limitation on the honesty of aposematic signals. Functional Ecology. 26, 334-342
- Ihalainen, E., Rowland, H. M., Speed, M. P., Ruxton, G. D., Mappes, J. M. (2012) Prey community structure affects how predators select for Müllerian mimicry. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B.279, 2099-2105
- Higginson, A. D., de Wert, L., Rowland, H. M., Speed, M. P., Ruxton, G. D. (2012) Masquerade is associated with polyphagy and larval overwintering in the Lepidoptera. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 106, 90-103
- Skelhorn, J., Rowland, H. M., Delf, J., Speed, M. P., Ruxton, G. D. (2011) Density-dependent predation influences the evolution and behaviour of masquerading prey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 6532-6536
- Skelhorn, J, Rowland, H. M., Speed, M. P., De Wert, L., Quinn, L., Delf, J., Ruxton, G. D. (2010). Size-dependent misclassification of masquerading prey. Behavioural Ecology, 1 (6): 1344-1348
- Rowland, H. M., Mappes, J., Ruxton, G. D., & Speed, M. P. (2010). Mimicry between unequally defended prey can be parasitic: Evidence for Quasi-Batesian mimicry. Ecology Letters, 13, 1494-1502.
- Rowland, H. M., Wiley, E., Ruxton, G. D., Mappes, J. M., & Speed, M. P. When more is less: the fitness consequences of predators attacking more unpalatable prey when more are presented. Biology Letters, 6(6), 732-735.
- Rowland, H. M., Hoogesteger, T., speed, M. P., Ruxton, G. D., Mappes, J. M. (2010). A tale of 2 signals: Mimicry between aposematic species enhances predator avoidance learning. Behavioral Ecology, 21(4), 851-860.
- Skelhorn, J., Rowland, H. M., Speed, M. P., & Ruxton, G. D. (2010). Masquerade: camouflage without crypsis. Science, 327, 51.
- Skelhorn, J., Rowland, H. M., & Ruxton, G. D. (2010). The evolution and ecology of masquerade. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 99, 1-8.
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