Research projects for postgraduate students
Research in the Department of Zoology is broadly based around four themes, which span all levels of the study of animal life. Projects offered by the Department in 2026-27 are listed below, by theme. The list is not exhaustive, and applicants are encouraged to approach any of our supervisors with their own project ideas.
To read more about our current research themes, identify a potential supervisor, and find supervisor contact details, please visit our Research Pages.
Applying for a project
Please contact a potential supervisor to discuss a project before you submit your application. For course information and details of how to apply see our Postgraduate study page our Postgraduate study page..
NERC DLA (NERC-funded PhD Studentships)
The Cambridge Research Experience and Advanced Training for Environmental Scientists (CREATES) is the proposed programme of PhD studentships under the NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards scheme. If funded, the University hopes to offer at least 15, 3.5 year NERC-funded PhD studentships for the first cohort in October 2026.
More funding and eligibility information can be found on the Cambridge NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards website.
Cambridge Biosciences DTP
You may wish to apply to the Cambridge Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership in parallel to a specific PhD project. For more information have a look at the Cambridge biosciences DTP website.
Departmental studentships and other funding
For further information about funding, including departmental studentships, see our Funding page.
Find a project by theme:
Human demands on the planet are growing rapidly, generating large-scale land-use change, climate change, and degradation of ecosystems. We are witnessing rapid losses of biodiversity, with consequences for humanity that are not fully understood.
Researchers in this theme aim to understand patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem change, to characterise pressures that are driving loss or degradation, and to identify the most effective and efficient responses, at every scale from local land management to international convention. Our work also confronts the challenge of balancing the conservation of biodiversity against the use of land for food production and seeks new alternatives for guaranteeing food security.
Projects:
Tracking the past to predict the future
Supervisor: Professor Andrea Manica
Repeated adaptation to altitude in Andean butterflies
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins
Population genomics of invasive Helicoverpa crop pests
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins
Gene family diversification in the black soldier fly
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Jiggins
Butterfly banks as miniature conservation interventions
Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner
Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner
The impacts of riparian within oil palm on insect movement and behaviour
Supervisor: Professor Edgar Turner
Eco-evolutionary dynamics of early animals
Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell
Fine-scale community ecology of Antarctic benthic communities
Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell
The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish
Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read
Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf
Reversing defaunation through rewilding and its consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem function
Supervisor: Professor Rob Fletcher
Effects of light microhabitats in shaping species assemblages in tropical forest
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Life on the edge: local adaptation and conservation status of butterflies on the Orme
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Click here to learn more about our research in the Ecology and Conservation Science theme or identify a potential supervisor.
The diversity of life that exists today, and indeed that has ever existed, arose through evolution - often in response to sudden environmental change.
Researchers in this theme use the full history of life on earth to analyse how evolution works and why some species thrive while others go extinct. We investigate the genetic origins of adaptive diversity, the way that new mutations arise and the extent to which genetic innovations are ‘borrowed’ from other lineages. We study how adaptations arise from selective pressures under different ecological environments, including the selective environments that are generated when new species interact, as climate change brings new species together, or that result from social behaviour within species.
Projects:
Brain and behavioural disfunction in interspecific hybrids, and their role in speciation
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Evolution of behavioural mechanisms underpinning spatial memory
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Convergent evolution of social regurgitation across Hymenoptera
Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf
The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish
Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read
Towards an Integrative Understanding of Animal Weapons
Supervisor: Dr Christine Miller
Eco-evolutionary dynamics of early animals
Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell
Rare taxa in the early animals of the Ediacaran
Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell
Reproductive and dispersal dynamics of early animals of the Ediacaran
Supervisor: Dr Emily Mitchell
Click here to learn more about our research in the Evolution theme or identify a potential supervisor.
An animal’s behaviour is the most flexible part of its phenotype. Researchers in this theme investigate how animal behaviour provides a first line of defence for coping with a new and adverse world, enabling individuals to be highly responsive to a changeable social, ecological and physical environment. We analyse why some animals are more sociable than others, and how their social interactions drive the further evolution of adaptive behaviour and morphology. We determine how individual neurones cause a behaviour to happen, by analysing how sensory perception connects through to action. Our work investigates how behaviour and bodies develop under changeable environmental conditions.
Projects:
Evolution of Living Storage – Genomic and Behavioural Analysis of Honeypot Ant Repletism
Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf
Characterising newly discovered neurotransmitter receptors
Supervisor: Dr Iris Hardege
The mechanisms underlying colour polymorphisms in trumpetfish
Supervisor: Dr James Herbert-Read
Regulation of neuronal plasticity by metabolic reactive oxygen species
Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf
Glial cell evolution during brain expansion
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Click here to learn more about our research in the Behaviour and Neuroscience theme or identify a potential supervisor.
Through a deeper understanding of how DNA replicates, how cells function and how bodies develop, we can recognise what happens when biology goes wrong – and apply that knowledge to mitigate the negative consequences for human health.
By understanding how new mutations arise and respond to selection, we can predict the gene sequences that will evolve next and stay one step ahead in the evolutionary arms race between vaccines and pathogens.
Finally, by understanding how animals move and change their behaviour in response to climate change, we can predict which species will soon interact for the first time and where there is greatest risk of new zoonotic diseases emerging.
Projects:
Lifespan impacts of metabolic division of labour
Supervisor: Dr Adria LeBoeuf
Extreme chromosomal instability in bivalve transmissible cancers
Supervisor: Dr Adrian Baez-Ortega
Supervisor: Dr Christiana Scheib
Predicting the Evolution of Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 Viruses
Supervisor: Professor Derek Smith
Epigenetic mechanism of critical period-plasticity in nervous system development
Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf
Metabolic regulation of brain development
Supervisor: Professor Matthias Landgraf
Biomolecular condensates in early development
Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil
In vitro fertilisation and egg activation in Drosophila
Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil
Coordinated change and programmed cell death in small cell networks
Supervisor: Professor Tim Weil
Ageing brains, metabolism and sleep
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Montgomery
Click here to learn more about our research in the Health and Evolutionary Medicine theme or identify a potential supervisor.