Dr Steve Portugal, The University of Oxford

2017 has been a good year in the lab (generally….). Field work took us to South Africa, Cambodia, Honduras and Borneo, and lab visits to Harvard (USA) and Monash (Australia). Lucy Taylor won a poster prize at the SEB in Sweden (and published her first pigeon PhD paper in JEB), and Dan Sankey won a prize for his talk at the RHUL Postgraduate Symposium (and represented the lab at Biologging in Germany). Rhianna Ricketts and Miranda Reynolds joined the lab, and they both start experiments in earnest in the New Year, with pigeons and cowbirds respectively. 2018 is shaping up to be busy, with a new Research Assistant starting in February to undertake work with the pigeons (in collaboration with Craig White), and our facilities are expanding thanks to a grant from the Royal Society. In the Spring, a new PhD student begins work on the critically endangered blue-crowned laughingthrush (with Sam Turvey and Sarah Papworth), and I start teaching a new module in September called “Extreme Animal Physiology”. I’m particularly looking forward to working with Monica Daley, Chris Faulkes and Nigel Bennett on our exciting mole rat data, and also having an awesome holiday in Croatia in the spring. Happy New Year!

I am looking for a a Field Assistant-Tech person to come and work with us and the pigeons for 6 months next year. Full details below and in the link.

https://jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=1117-457

Co-author Christie Riehl has written a blog about our paper, recently published in Ibis. You can read the blog here!

With regards to the below, the proper link to apply, with further details, can be found in this link – https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/biologicalsciences/study-here/research-degrees/phdstudentships2017.aspx

We have a fully-funded PhD Studentship available, supervised by Sam Turvey (ZSL), Sarah Papworth and myself (RHUL). Details are below, with full application details to follow shortly.

Thrilled to get a Royal Society Research Grant. Third time of trying so never give up hope….. The project is called “Does practice make perfect: How much energy does streamlining save during group locomotive tasks?”. The work will focus on how young birds develop their flocking skills (both cluster and Vee formation), and (as the title suggests) as adults, how practise can reduce energy expenditure through experience.

Currently at the University of Pretoria working with Prof Nigel Bennett and his amazing collection of Mole Rats. This work forms part of the wider project with Dr’s Chris Faulkes (QMUL) and Monica Daley (RVC), and is funded by an RSF from RHUL.

It’s been a busy few weeks. Two weeks in Cambodia proved successful working with wild Siamese Fighting Fish. Just prior to departure, we had our first RHUL-Imperial mini conference, organised by myself and Joe Tobias, which was fascinating and good fun too. Lab member Dan Sankey presented his new data on pigeons at the 6th Biologging conference, and the ZSL Avian Senses conference was excellent (thanks to Hannah Rowland for inviting me to talk about Secretary Birds and Vultures).  A busy week in the office setting up project students, and now off to Cape Town (to visit Susan Cunningham and Claire Spottiswoode) before continuing onto Pretoria, to work on the fascinating Bathyergidae with Prof Nigel Bennett. First time there, so suitably excited.

We have two new members joining our lab group, MSc by Research students Rhianna Ricketts (right) and Miranda Reynolds (left). Rhianna will be working on social structure and individual recognition in birds (pigeons), and Miranda on the metabolics of avian brood parasitism.

Our new Review paper is out in the Journal of Fish Biology. All about the amazing air breathing Anabantoid fish. You can read it here!