News

Research carried out by Dr Sarah Scott and colleagues in our Agroecology Group has shown that bumblebees are particularly vulnerable to metal pollution, which can impair foraging, reproduction and colony success, even at low contamination levels.Published in Ecological Entomology, the study found that bumblebees are exposed to higher levels of toxi…

We are greatly saddened by the recent death of Professor Malcolm Burrows FRS. Malcolm’s life, career and exceptional scientific achievements were deeply entwined with the Department and with Cambridge. He was educated at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and was an undergraduate at Jesus College, where he took Part II Zoology. After working at St…

We are delighted to share the news that three of our research groups have been awarded Species Recovery Programme grants. The programme is delivered by Natural England as part of the government's "Wild Again: Restoring England's Wildlife" initiative. More than 350 threatened species will benefit from the largest ever investment in recovering Englan…

 The way that Earth’s first animals reproduced held back life’s diversity for millions of years, until stress and competition led to the development of sexual reproduction, which in turn accelerated the pace of evolution. 

  Earlier this year, an international, interdisciplinary team led by Dr Adria LeBoeuf, group leader of the Laboratory of Social Fluids, was awarded a highly prestigious Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Research Grant.  Here, Dr LeBoeuf describes the project and the significance of the grant.

A study led by Dr Sayam Chowdhury of our Conservation Science Group, draws on more than 14 years of shorebird monitoring in Bangladesh, combined with satellite tracking across Asia, to offer important insights into the decline of migratory shorebird species.

Famously secretive, the Corncrake (Crex crex) has declined sharply in western Europe and is now classified as Near Threatened in the EU and Red-listed in the UK.

 We celebrated Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday in style with a screening of ‘Ocean’, the landmark documentary narrated by Sir David.  The film was introduced by our Head of Department, Professor Rebecca Kilner and Toby Nowlan, the film’s director/producer.

What do potatoes, pigs and pollinators have in common?They’re all vital in feeding the growing human population – but modern intensive farming has created one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

This week we celebrated Professor Mark Brown’s appointment as Director of the University Museum of Zoology and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. 

UK residents put out enough bird food each year to feed more than 3 times the entire populations of garden bird food consuming bird species if they ate nothing else. In response to emerging evidence, the RSPB has asked the public to rethink this practice. 

The 25th Student Conference on Conservation Science takes place here in Zoology next week.  Conservationists and students from across the globe will travel to Cambridge to take part.Four delegates told us about the importance of the event to them, and to their research.Fetratiana RakotomangaUniversity of Antananarivo, MadagascarI first became inter…

Insects make up the vast majority of animal species on Earth, but their populations are declining rapidly.   The ability to measure their numbers is crucial to understand the efficacy of methods to reverse the trend, but, until now, tracking insect decline at a global scale has been challenging.  New technologies could change this.A new study, publ…

Research groups in this Department are playing an important part in Europe’s response to pollinator decline.Through their participation in the EU-funded Safeguard and RestPoll projects, our researchers contribute significantly both to practical guidance and to policy advice for everyone interested in pollinator and nature restoration, from local pr…

New research shows a previously unrecognised adaptation to changing climatic conditions in one of the most charismatic plant genera of South-East Asia, the carnivorous pitcher plant.Published in the March 2026 edition of the Annals of Botany, the research was led by Charlotte Andrew, a PhD student in our Insect Biomechanics Group.Nepenthes rafflesi…