Research interests
Behaviour is a major integrating process because it mediates interactions between animals (including humans ) and their and environments. Understanding these interactions and their evolutionary causes are fundamental goals of the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour.
Our research addresses two fundamental questions:
- How and what information is gathered from the physical and social environment?
- How is this information used to make decisions in order to maximise survival and reproduction?
The first is the major research goal of Hempel de Ibarra, Collett and Darden whilst the second is that of Brent, Croft, Madden, Lea and Leaver.
We focus on two key areas of behaviour.
Animal cognition, learning and memory
We carry out experimental work on perception, cognition and memory in various species including pigeons, bowerbirds, squirrels, ants and bees. In the lab, the research is mainly focused on pattern recognition and visual discrimination. Unusually, we extend these studies into the field, where we explore how cognitive processes in the wild provide adaptive benefits to individuals in the forms of locating and/or caching food supplies, attracting a mate, determining optimal foraging paths, or learning optimal food choices. This work takes approaches and paradigms established in the cognitive sciences and applies them to novel, natural systems.
Social influences on Individual Behaviour
We conduct observational and experimental work on free-living and captive social animals, including guppies, pheasants, killer whales, bowerbirds, squirrels, fiddler crabs and cattle. The work focuses on how an animal’s social environment shapes an individual’s behaviour, including their sexual behaviour, mate choice, foraging choices and cooperative interactions. The group leads the field in viewing such polyadic interactions as networks within groups, and in applying this matrix based approach to analysis of such questions.
MPhil and PhD Projects
- Family dynamics in killer whales: consequences for behaviour and life history (Mia Kronborg Nielsen)
- The impact of light at night on bee-plant interactions (Katy Chapman)
- Flexible courtship strategies in the fiddler crab Afruca tangeri (Joe Wilde)
- Living fast and showing off? Evaluating individual and social influences on risky behaviour (Steph Hunt)
- Kinship and the evolution of social relationships (Andre Pereira)
- The behaviour of bees in dim light (Katie Hall)
- Variability and uncertainty in the reproductive games of cooperative breeders (Laure Olivier)
- Evolution of cooperation in Trinidadian guppies: cooperative investment and social traits (Becky Padget)
- The interplay between sociality and health in free-ranging rhesus macaques (Melissa Pavez)
- Using bio-logging to improve sheep health and production (Emily Price)
- Breeding of ground-nesting birds and cuckoos in Dartmoor National Park (Sara Zonneveld)
- Cooperating in a dynamic social environment (Sylvia Dimitriadou)
- Variation in corvid ranging, foraging and predatory behaviour, and its effects on songbird productivity (Lucy Capstick)
- The role of cognitive functions in problem solving across domains in grey squirrels (Pizza Ka Yee Chow)
- Spatial learning and homing in bumblebees (Théo Robert)
- Flamingo Behaviour & Welfare Project (Paul Rose)
- How animal social network structure of a group can be affected by behavioural traits of an individual and vice versa (Xareni Pacheco)
- The effect of early rearing environments on the adult behaviour of released pheasants (Mark Whiteside)
- The influence of Social Networks on Welfare and Productivity in Dairy Cattle (Natasha Boyland)
- The role of pollen as a reward for learning in bees (Beth Nicholls)
- The role of social and cognitive factors in shaping the sexual display of male bowerbirds (Jess Isden)
- Social influences on caching behaviour in the eastern grey squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis (Kimberley Jayne)
- Can cognitive enrichment improve the welfare of captive animals? (Louise Millar)
- Using Behaviour to Determine Welfare and Enrichment Criteria for Aquatic Environmental Protection Research (Jenny Landin)
- The structure and function of social networks in a marine predator (David Jacoby)
- Behavioural Phenotypes: Associated Life History Traits and Environmental Effects on Development (Mathew Edenbrow)
- Investigations into the function of howl vocalisations in captive black and gold howler monkeys (Alouatta caraya) (Holly Farmer)
- Exploring the social networks of an endangered population of killer whales (Orcinus orca) (Emma Foster)
- The influence of experience and familiarity of male trait distributions on female mate-preference functions in guppies (Alessandro Macario)
- Assessing mechanisms of social conflict and social interactions in captive bachelor gorilla groups (Kirsten Pullen)
- Investigating the influence of social and non-social factors on the cache-related behaviour of grey squirrels (Lucy Hopewell)
- Investigating the presence of imitative learning in a variety of zoo housed animals (Nicole Dorey)
- Effects of captivity and implications for ex-situ conservation - using Ailurus fulgens fulgens as a case study (Kristen Jule)
- Investigating spontaneous discrimination of natural concepts in non-human primates (Faith Warner)