Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Before I moved to New Zealand birds were, well, birds. They were nice to see but I didn’t pay them much attention. But New Zealand is a bird paradise and as a biology student (I studied for my undergraduate degree at the University of Auckland) birds were the go-to exemplar of many biological concepts. With …
On the 20th and 21st of February we had our annual School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium. Over the course of two days many of our PhD students presented their work to the School. We also had two interesting plenary talks from Dr Sophie Arnaud-Haond (Ifremer) and Dr Lesley Morrell (University of Hull). Unfortunately our third speaker, Dr Fiona Jordan (University of …
Continue reading “School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium 2014: Part 3/4”
Part of our series of posts by final-year undergraduate students for their Research Comprehension module. Students write blogs inspired by guest lecturers in our Evolutionary Biology and Ecology seminar series in the School of Natural Sciences. This week, views from Somantha Killion-Connolly and Joe Bliss on David Angeler’s seminar, Ecological complexity: a torture or nurture for …
Continue reading “Seminar series: David Angeler, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences”
My former PhD student, Luke McNally and I authored a paper published recently showing how “Cooperation creates selection for tactical deception”. Using a combination of mathematical models and analysis of empirical data from 24 primate species, we show that acts of deception are more likely to occur when the individuals in the group show greater cooperation. In …
Continue reading “Science be praised, please cure me of my Yoda Complex”
The Toco Toucan (Ramphastos toco) is the largest species in the toucan family but not only that, it has the largest bill relative to body size of all birds. As with most things in Zoology the function of the bill has been hotly debated, even Darwin himself weighed in …
On the 15th and 16th April we had one of my favourite events at Trinity College Dublin: the annual School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium. Over the course of two days many of our PhD students presented their work to the School. We also had two amazing plenary talks from Dr Nick Isaac (CEH) and …
Continue reading “School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium: Part 3/4”
On the 15th and 16th April we had one of my favourite events at Trinity College Dublin: the annual School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium. Over the course of two days many of our PhD students presented their work to the School. We also had two amazing plenary talks from Dr Nick Isaac (CEH) and …
Continue reading “School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium: Part 2/4”
One of the many things I love about Zoology is the opportunity to work away from a desk. As an undergraduate I enjoyed field courses and summer projects in the not so exotic wilds of Ireland and Cambridgeshire – great experiences but not quite a match for the glamour of the recent TCD trip to …
Continue reading “The Perks of Zoology; Field Work in the Greek Islands”
No man is an island; the same could be said for the millions of life forms that populate our planet. Think of all the ways in which organisms interact with each other through predation, parasitism and the countless symbioses. Sometimes a pair of interacting partners can become inextricably linked such is their mutual dependence. Each …
A new study has been published online in Ecology Letters by Mirkka Lahdenperä and colleagues, which suggests that competition between grandmothers and their daughters-in-law may explain the evolution of menopause. The study used a 200-year dataset of births, deaths and residency patterns in pre-industrial Finland to show that competition between unrelated females of different generations …
Continue reading “Hot heads lead to hot flashes: the evolution of menopause”