Research
My research is in:
1) Animal Communication, with a focuses on the stability of communication systems which are vulnerable to cheating. I use advertisement of prey defences as a case-study in communication, especially where animals use costly, bright colouration to signal to their enemies.
2) Evolutionary Bioinformatics Research: focuses on generating statistical measures to evaluate the predictability of phenotype evolution. It asks, are life’s forms limited by the narrow range of engineering solutions to life’s challenges?
3) Coevolution and plant secondary metabolites - seeks general explanations for the notorious diversification of plant metabolisms.
Research Interest 1
Research Interests
My main research focus is on the evolution of defensive traits in prey species, specifically I am warning displays, crypsis and camouflage and the repellent secondary defences (such as toxins or spines). This research has a major empirical component - testing functional hypotheses about varied forms of prey defences with individually-identified wild (bird) predators, and a major theoretical component – developing models of defensive trait optimisation, paying particular attention to the way that components of a defensive ensemble co-evolve in relation to one another. I am also interested in particular species that have well defined anti-predator defences such as the common wasp; with the animal genomics group here, we are looking at the phylogeography of variation in warning displays in common wasps.
Research grants
Exploring optimisation of defences in prey animals: an individual-based approach - Fellowship
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
September 2006 - August 2008
Application of spectral analysis to test the theory of countershaded-crypsis in insect larvae.
ROYAL SOCIETY (CHARITABLE)
March 2005 - February 2006
Optimal investment in costly anti-predator defences
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
February 2008 - February 2011
The evolutionary ecology of automimicry.
ROYAL SOCIETY (CHARITABLE)
August 2004
Butterfly Wings - A testing ground for Darwinian and Wallacian hypotheses of sexual dichromatism
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR (UK)
July 2013 - August 2013
Masquerade: critical testing of the ecology of disguise
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
June 2008 - June 2011
Development of novel molecular tools for the study of sperm usage in insects
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
January 2007 - November 2010
The evolutionary ecology of defensive toxins
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
July 2013 - September 2013
Causes of signal mimicry and its consequences for optimal investment in secondary defences.
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2007 - September 2010
Research collaborations
Professor Graeme Ruxton
University of Glasgow
Collaborative work on the evolution of secondary defences in prey animals