Dr Steve Portugal, The University of Oxford

I have a fully funded PhD available, with full details available here.

Funding is available for one project, but two project areas are suggested and can be applied to. These areas are:

1. Collective flocking in birds (looking at behaviour, physiology and energetics). Co-supervised by Dr Dora Biro (Oxford) and Dr Emily Shepard (Swansea).
2. Physiology, development and behaviour of brood parasites (primarily cuckoos). Co-supervised by Dr Claire Spottiswoode (Cambridge) and Dr Christine Riehl (Princeton).

Any informal enquiries, feel free to drop me an email. FindaPhD adverts can be found on the following links:

Cuckoos

Collective physiology

Chris Packham avisited Royal Holloway this weekend to chat and film all things egg. Great fun, and good for eggs to get some screen time

We’ve had a paper accepted in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology (PBZ), focusing on trends in metabolism between birds and mammals. More to follow.

Having thought for a while about how scientific study focuses on those species which are struggling, I decided to write a short Opinion Piece for The Conversation – the article can be read here:

https://theconversation.com/how-a-bias-towards-the-weird-and-wonderful-skews-our-perception-of-animal-biology-53701

Due to recent ERC grant success within the theme, we have a 5 year , full time, Teaching Fellow position available – please see the link for more details:

https://jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=0216-071

Our egg paper is out in Ecology and Evolution – read here! 

Our paper on Secretary Birds is out in Current Biology, with the front cover showing Madeleine going for a double air-kick. Lots of fun press stories, a couple of which can be read here from the BBC and Ed Yong. The paper is here.

Looking forward to presenting at the SEB Brighton 2016 this year in the symposium “The role of individual variation in the behaviour of animal groups”, organised by Shaun Killen and Stefano Marras.