Jess’s MSc entitled “Coevolutionary causes and consequences of high-fidelity mimicry by a specialist brood parasite” was awarded with distinction. A massive thank you to the field team which made this work possible, the research group for all their discussion and assistance, and the two examiners who both had some wonderful insights. Jess is still on the team and is now doing her PhD at Cambridge on host-specificity in honeyguides.
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.
Our paper “Pigment concentrations only partially predict avian eggshell colour mimicry in a polymorphic host–brood parasite system” has been published in the journal Biology Letters.
Mairenn Attwood’s paper ‘How do parasites and predators choose their victim? A trade-off between quality and vulnerability across antagonistic interactions’ is out now in the journal Biological Reviews.
Our paper “How animals discriminate between stimulus magnitudes: a meta-analysis” has been published in the journal Behavioral Ecology.