Leverhulme Fellowship for Nick Horrocks

May 15, 2015

Dr Nicholas Horrocks has been awarded a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to continue working on our study systems in Zambia. Nick’s fellowship project is entitled “Phenotypic plasticity in reproductive investment in a rapidly changing world” and will focus on whether ground-nesting birds at our study site (plovers, coursers and nightjars) can adapt to increased nest disturbance and hotter temperatures due to climate change. He will also investigate whether cuckoo finch mothers pre-adapt their chicks to thrive in the specific host nests that different cuckoo finch races parasitise. Congratulations Nick, and thank you to The Leverhulme Trust for their fantastic support once again.

News

Chima Nwaogu presents research lecture at Uppsala University, Sweden

Dr Chima Nwaogu visited the Animal Ecology Unit at the Evolutionsbiologisk centrum (EBC) at Uppsala University, Sweden, to present the 2025 Christer Hemborg lecture. He gave a research lecture on why Afrotropical birds breed when they do, based on analyses of breeding records derived from Major John Colebrook-Robjent’s egg collection currently held at the Livingstone Museum. He explored how the effects of pre-rain tree green-up and rainfall onset differentially drive invertebrate and grass seed abundance, influencing multiple seasonal bird breeding patterns throughout the year.

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