Animal Behaviour - School of Psychology - The University of Exeter

Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour

7th-9th of April 2010. Find out more and register now!

Key Research Areas

We have created a new animal behaviour centre under the leadership of Professor Lea.

Our research group is now uniquely placed as one of the few international groups with a critical mass of research strength in behavioural ecology, sensory ecology, signalling and communication and animal cognition. We explore the causes, functions and evolution of animal behaviour and how it adapts each species to its natural environment.

Our research addresses two fundamental questions: How and what information is gathered from the physical and social environment? How is this information used to make decisions in order to maximise survival and reproduction? Find out more.

The Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour hosts a series of seminars. Find out more about the visiting speakers and topics.

People

Academic staff	Dr Matthew Collett, Dr Darren Croft, Dr Safi Darden, Dr. Natalie Hempel de Ibarra, Professor Stephen Lea, Dr. Lisa Leaver, Dr. Joah Madden, Professor Ian McLaren, Catriona Ryan, Professor Andy Wills
Honorary Staff	Dr Malcolm Burgess, Professor Robert M. French , Dr. John Goss-Custard, Dr. Vicky Melfi, Dr. R. Nagarajan, Dr. Amy Plowman, Dr Humphrey Sitters
Postdoctoral Fellows	Dr Caroline Dingle, Dr Chris Pook
Research Students & Research Assistants	Mathew Edenbrow, Holly Farmer, Lucy Hopewell, Jess Isden, David Jacoby, Kathy Knight, Alessandro Macario, Lou Miller, Beth Nicholls, Kirsten Pullen, Bibiana Rojas-Zuluaga, Faith Warner, Toni Vernelli
Alumni	Dr Kristen Jule, Dr Nicole Dorey, Dr Lucy Hopewell, Dr Britta Osthaus, Dr Kazuhiro Goto

Facilities

Exeter provides exceptional facilities and location for this type of research.

The School has a small but modern and well-equipped animal facility, capable of housing birds, rodents and other small mammals. This facility is used in experimental work in animal perception and cognition in birds (pigeons and chickens) and mammals (squirrels).It is the School’s policy not to carry out research that would require ‘Procedure’ licenses from the Home Office; that is, we do not carry out research that involves inflicting pain or suffering on animals.

There is a well-equipped freshwater aquarium room which is used for long and short-term experiments with tropical freshwater fish behaviour and evolution. We also are well-equipped for studies of insect social behaviour and insect sensory ecology.

Our group has strong links with researchers at Paignton Zoo and other local wildlife organisations. We are also well equipped for field studies in animal behaviour, and have links to a number of important field sites in the Southwest region -as well as in Australia, South Africa and America. For example, Prof. Endler does his field research on Australian Bowerbirds in northeastern Australia and is an Adjunct Professor at James Cook University (Townsville and Cairns, Queensland)

Find out more

Programmes in Animal Behaviour:

"The passion and the experience of the animal behaviour staff at Exeter has amazed me. The hands-on opportunities of the Lundy ethological field course and the facilities available make Exeter an ideal place to study animal behaviour."

Justin Crittall, Animal Behaviour student