Biography & Research
Mairenn is a postdoc at the University of Cape Town studying species interactions – primarily parasitism, mimicry, and communication. Her projects span multiple avian systems, with a focus on phenomena including vocal mimicry, eavesdropping and mimetic accuracy.
Mairenn has been part of the Zambia team since 2019, studying African cuckoos and their fork-tailed drongo hosts for both her PhD and Master’s degrees at the University of Cambridge. After her first field season, she realised she ended up with many more questions than when she started, rather than fewer! Her PhD built on these questions to look at how drongos are both manipulated by the African cuckoo, and manipulate other species in the community. She found that drongos use vocal mimicry to defend their nests against cuckoos and predators; that other species respond to cuckoos because of mimicry; and that interactions in the miombo can be co-operative and manipulative in different contexts, particularly when many species are involved.
Mairenn’s love for behavioural ecology developed during her undergraduate degree, also at the University of Cambridge, where she worked on projects across taxa, including: the impact of parasitic plants on invasive Oxalis; the function of buccal oscillations in túngara frogs; interactions between pollen beetles and rock roses; and variation in invertebrate diversity across ancient and recently planted woodland. In her final year project, she investigated behavioural responses to kleptoparasitism risk in sticklebacks, supervised by Professor Nick Davies. Across these diverse taxa, interactions between individuals and species emerged as a central research interest.
Outside of her core research, Mairenn worked with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), to investigate how we can use biodiversity indicators to test international conservation targets. She believes that science is for everyone, and leads outreach sessions in schools and museums in Zambia and the UK (including the Scholar’s programme with The Brilliant Club).
Publications
- Attwood, M. C. (2025). How do parasites and predators choose their victim? A trade‐off between quality and vulnerability across antagonistic interactions. Biological Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70037
- Attwood, M. C., Lund, J., Nwaogu, C. J., Moya, C., & Spottiswoode, C. N. (2023). Aggressive hosts are undeterred by a cuckoo’s hawk mimicry, but probably make good foster parents. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(1990), 20221506.
- Feeney, W. E., Kennerley, J. A., Wheatcroft, D., Liang, W., Lamb, J. B., Teunissen, N., Lawson, S. L., Enos, J. K., Zhou, B., Poje, C., Richardson, N. M., Ryan, T. A., Cowan, Z., Brooker, R. M., Attwood, M. C., Boersma, J., Zamora, M., Attisano, A., Gula, R., … Blasi, D. E. (2025). Learned use of an innate sound-meaning association in birds. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 9(11), 2103–2115. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02855-9
- Lund, J., Dixit, T., Attwood, M. C., Hamama, S., Moya, C., Stevens, M., Jamie, G. A., & Spottiswoode, C. N. (2023). When perfection isn’t enough: host egg signatures are an effective defence against high-fidelity African cuckoo mimicry. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290, 20231125. https://doi.org/10.1098/RSPB.2023.1125
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Cram, D.L., van der Wal, J.E.M., Uomini, N.T., Cantor, M., Afan, A.I., Attwood, M.C., Amphaeris, J., Balasani, F., Blair, C.J., Bronstein, J.L., Buanachique, I.O., Cuthill, R.R.T., Das, J., Daura-Jorge, F.G., Deb, A., Dixit, T., Dlamini, G.S., Dounias, E., Gedi, I.I., Gruber, M., Hoffman, L.S., Holzlehner, T., Isack, H.A., Laltaika, A.E., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Lund, J., Machado, A.M.S., Mahadevan, L., Moreno, I.B., Nwaogu, C.J., Pereira, V.L., Pierotti, R., Rucunua, S.A., dos Santos, W.F., Serpa, N., Smith, B.D., Sridhar, H., Tolkova, I., Tun, T., Valle-Pereira, J.V.S., Wood, B.M., Wrangham, R.W. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2022 The ecology and evolution of human-wildlife cooperation. People and Nature.
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van der Wal, J.E.M., Spottiswoode, C.N., Uomini, N.T., Cantor, M., Daura-Jorge, F.G., Afan, A.I., Attwood, M.C., Amphaeris, J., Balasani, F., Begg, C.M., Blair, C.J., Bronstein, J.L., Buanachique, I.O., Cuthill, R.R.T., Das, J., Deb, A., Dixit, T., Dlamini, G.S., Dounias, E., Gedi, I.I., Gruber, M., Hoffman, L.S., Holzlehner, T., Isack, H.A., Laltaika, A.E., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Lund, J., Machado, A.M.S., Mahadevan, L., Moreno, I.B., Nwaogu, C.J., Pereira, V.L., Pierotti, R., Rucunua, S.A., dos Santos, W.F., Serpa, N., Smith, B.D., Tolkova, I., Tun, T., Valle-Pereira, J.V.S., Wood, B.M., Wrangham, R.W. & Cram, D.L. 2022 Safeguarding human-wildlife cooperation. Conservation Letters.