Dr Steve Portugal, Animal Behaviour and Physiology

Our new paper is out in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Very much masterminded and led by Craig White. You can read it here!

Congratulations to PhD student Jenny Cantlay who had her first PhD paper accepted today in Ibis, all about avian vision.

A fun week visiting Shaun Killen and his lab group at Glasgow University, and thoroughly enjoyed giving a Seminar there. Dan and Jack joined me to chat physiology and behaviour with Shaun and his group.

This week I am working at Slimbridge, studying duck vision. Trying to ascertain why some species drown in gill nets and others seemingly are aware of them. This forms a major part of Jenny Cantlay’s PhD (with Alex Bond and Rory Crawford).

As part of our Special Issue on Brood Parasitism in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, PhD student Stephanie has her first PhD paper – congratulations! Our paper provides evidence for convergent evolution of reduced eggshell gas exchange in avian brood parasites. You can read the aper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2018.0194

Our Special Issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B is out today! All about Brood Parasitism, including fish, birds and insects. Thank you to my Co-Editors Claire Spottiswoode, Rose Thorogood and Ros Gloag for making the process so enjoyable, and to all our contributors. You can read the Issue here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/374/1769 

Looking for a postdoc? I’m looking for someone to work with me on studying the structure of eggshells, using a mix of physiological, biomechanical and engineering-based techniques. This post is for two years, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The full job advert has now been posted online here – https://jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=0119-029. Feel free to get in touch. You can also read more about the project on the Leverhulme website here – https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/research-project-grants/spots-stars-or-stripes-evolution-eggshell-surface-topography