Birds choose nest sites that match their own camouflage

Aug 15, 2017

Animals that rely on camouflage can choose the best places to conceal themselves based on their individual appearance, our work in Zambia has found. Studying nine species of nightjar, plover and courser, we found that individual birds adjust their choices of where to nest based on their specific patterns and colours of their eggs (in the case of plovers and coursers that flee at long range) or their plumage (in the case of nightjars that sit tight on their eggs). Read more in the full paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, by Martin StevensJolyon TrosciankoJared Wilson-Aggarwal and Claire Spottiswoode; see also news articles about this research in The TelegraphThe Daily MailThe International Business Times and Cosmos Magazine, and Jared’s behind-the-paper blog on the journal website.

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Tanmay Dixit awarded PhD and starting Junior Research Fellowship

Tanmay’s PhD, entitled “Signatures and forgeries: optimality in a coevolutionary arms race” was awarded with no corrections. Huge thanks to collaborators and colleagues who were instrumental to this work, and to examiners James Herbert-Read and Graeme Ruxton. Tanmay will remain on the team and continue conducting fieldwork in Choma as part of the Junior Research fellowship that he is starting at Jesus College, Cambridge.

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