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 Stevens, Jolyon Troscianko, Jared Wilson-Aggarwal and Claire Spottiswoode; see also news articles about this research in The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The International Business Times and Cosmos Magazine, and Jared’s behind-the-paper blog on the journal website.
Jess Lund awarded an R. C. Lewontin Grant from the Society for the Study of Evolution
The Society for the Study of Evolution has awarded Jess Lund an R. C. Lewontin Graduate Research Excellence Grant, which will enable her to expand her investigations into the fascinating lives of honeyguides. This grant is awarded to students early in their PhD programmes to assist them in enhancing the scope of their research. Thank you to the SSE for their generous support of our work!