On Monday 14 April we welcomed members of the department to our first in-house postgraduate student symposium. The symposium is our annual opportunity to showcase and celebrate the diverse work being done by PhD and MPhil students in the department — as well as to build links between research groups and exchange ideas and...

Today we congratulate three members of our department, Dr Gregory Jefferis , Prof Claire Spottiswoode and Dr Marta Zlatić on being elected Fellows of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. Fellowship of the Society is a significant honour. Fellows are elected for life, based on excellence in science...

Making the right decisions to protect species and habitats is crucial, but it's tough when scientific knowledge on conservation actions is scattered across thousands of studies. Even though resources like the Conservation Evidence database , contain searchable summaries of conservation actions and their outputs, finding...

The first robust global dataset on naked clam biology and growth has been assembled through painstaking research by a team based here in Cambridge. The paper, ‘ Naked clams: a comprehensive analysis of their global potential for commercial aquaculture ’ published today in the journal Reviews in Aquaculture, presents a...

A new study, co-authored by Dr William Foster and colleagues at the University of Exeter, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that while female wasps might have ‘miniature brains’ but they have excellent memories when it comes to feeding their young. The research, conducted on heathland in Surrey, shows that...

Scientists have long searched for a clear "start here" signal for DNA replication in the human genome. Research published this week in the journal Nucleic Acids Research by Dr Torsten Krude and students here in the Department of Zoology, in collaboration with colleagues at The Francis Crick Institute , reports important...

Congratulations to Prof William Sutherland , Director of Research and co-leader of the Conservation Science Group who has been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society . The APS is the oldest learned society in North America, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin to bring together creative thinkers in the...

Amid the hype about AI’s potential to turbocharge human abilities, researchers here in Zoology and the Conservation Research Institute are leading conversations to make sure we advance with eyes wide open. Last year, Dr Sam Reynolds, a Research Associate in our Conservation Science Group joined 26 other conservation...

We are delighted to share the news that Professor Robert Fletcher , who is co-leader of our Conservation Science Group , has been made a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America . ESA Fellows are elected for their exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions to their field. This year, the ESA Governing Board...

Dr Rosie Trevelyan MBE, Director of the Cambridge office of the Tropical Biology Association (TBA) at the CCI, has won the Frankfurt Conservation Award (Bruno H. Schubert Prize) 2025 for outstanding achievements in teaching related to nature and environmental protection. The award citation recognises her dedicated teaching...

Over 194 million birds and 57 million mammals are killed annually on European roads and up to 1 billion birds die every year from building collisions in the United States. a_well_connected_earth.png Connectivity, the free movement of organisms of all kinds, from amoebas and algae to waxworms and wildebeest, across...

Field courses are a key part of our undergraduate teaching: they help students put the material from their lectures in context, develop a spirit of curiosity, and engage with each other and their teachers in a more informal environment. Dr Hamish Symington , Postdoctoral Researcher in the Glover Lab, Department of Plant...

Research by Dr Sarah Scott, a member of our Agroecology Group , and colleagues published today in the journal Ecology and Evolution shows that toxins accumulated in wildflowers can damage the health of pollinators. Dr Scott who is first author of the report, said: “It’s really important to have wildflowers as a food source...

A recent paper published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, co-authored by Jonathan Timperley, Prof Edgar Turner and Dr Michael Pahskevich, describes how oil palm farming methods in Liberia affect arthropod diversity, and suggests strategies to protect these key animals and help ensure the long-term...

The Evolutionary Ecology Group here in Zoology, studies how animals (including our own species) respond and adapt to changing environments. Sea-faring hunter-gathers Dr Margherita Colucci, a research associate with the EEG, is one of the authors of a paper published in Nature this week, which shows that humans were able to...

Insects are the dominant animal life-form on our planet and an essential part of our ecosystems. Yet, despite reports of catastrophic insect declines and potentially imminent ‘insectageddon’, the global state of insect biodiversity remains unclear due in part to a massive lack of data. A study published this week in the...

This week Zoology is hosting, for the 24th time, the Student Conference on Conservation Science. The event will bring together in person around 160 early career conservation researchers, plus many more attending online. They’re coming here from over 40 countries - to find out about one another’s work, learn skills, meet...

Dr Helen Weavers , whose PhD was supervised by Professor Helen Skaer here in the Department of Zoology, has been awarded the prestigious Women in Cell Biology Early Career Medal . Dr Weavers is Associate Professor in Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Bristol. Professor Skaer was delighted by the news of...

Congratulations to Professor Helen Skaer who has been awarded the prestigious British Society for Developmental Biology Waddington Medal . The Waddington Medal is the only national award in Developmental Biology. It honours outstanding research performance as well as services to the subject community. Professor Skaer said...

Congratulations to Sofia Dartnell, Nynke Blömer, Jacqui James, Dr. Sarah Scott, and Professor Lynn Dicks hosts of the 2025 Bumblebee Working Group (BBWG) meeting, held here in the Department of Zoology earlier this week. This biannual meeting brings British bumblebee researchers together to discuss their work and updates...