Nicholas Barry Davies | |
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| Born | 1952 (age 71–72) |
| Citizenship | British |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Zoology |
Nicholas Barry Davies FRS [1] (born 1952) is a British field naturalist and zoologist, and Emeritus Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge, [2] where he is also a Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College.
His books with John Krebs helped to define the field of behavioural ecology, the study of how behaviour evolves in response to selection pressures from ecology and the social environment. [3]
His study of a small brown bird, the dunnock, linked detailed behavioural observations of individuals to their reproductive success, using DNA profiles to measure paternity and maternity, and revealed how sexual conflicts gave rise to variable mating systems including: monogamy, polygyny, polyandry and polygynandry.
His studies of cuckoos and their hosts have revealed an evolutionary arms race of brood parasite adaptations and host counter-adaptations.
Other studies include: territory economics in pied wagtails; contest behaviour and mate searching in butterflies and toads; parent-offspring conflict and the transition to independence in young birds.
In 2009, his research was featured as a BBC Natural World program "Cuckoo", produced by Mike Birkhead and narrated by David Attenborough.
In 2011 he presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary entitled 'The Cuckoo'. [9]
In 2016 he was the subject of a BBC Radio documentary in the series The Life Scientific. [10]
In 2017 he was the guest of Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3 Private Passions. [11]
In 2017 he appeared in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 Natural Histories series entitled "Cuckoo". [12]
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior.
The dunnock is a small passerine, or perching bird, found throughout temperate Europe and into Asian Russia. Dunnocks have also been successfully introduced into New Zealand. It is by far the most widespread member of the accentor family; most other accentors are limited to mountain habitats. Other common names of the dunnock include: hedge accentor, hedge sparrow, hedge warbler, and titling.
Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of certain animals, brood parasites, that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's.
Christopher Miles Perrins, is Emeritus Fellow of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and His Majesty's Warden of the Swans since 1993.
An obligate parasite or holoparasite is a parasitic organism that cannot complete its life-cycle without exploiting a suitable host. If an obligate parasite cannot obtain a host it will fail to reproduce. This is opposed to a facultative parasite, which can act as a parasite but does not rely on its host to continue its life-cycle. Obligate parasites have evolved a variety of parasitic strategies to exploit their hosts. Holoparasites and some hemiparasites are obligate.
John Richard Krebs, Baron Krebs, FRS is an English zoologist researching in the field of behavioural ecology of birds. He was the principal of Jesus College, Oxford, from 2005 until 2015. Lord Krebs was President of the British Science Association from 2012 to 2013.
Horsfield's bronze cuckoo is a small cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. Its size averages 22g and is distinguished by its green and bronze iridescent colouring on its back and incomplete brown barring from neck to tail. Horsfield's bronze cuckoo can be destiguished from other bronze cuckoos by its white eyebrow and brown eye stripe. The Horsfield's bronze cuckoo is common throughout Australia preferring the drier open woodlands away from forested areas.
The screaming cowbird is an obligate brood parasite belonging to the family Icteridae and is found in South America. It is also known commonly as the short billed cowbird.
In animal behaviour, a gens or host race is a host-specific lineage of a brood parasite species. Brood parasites, such as cuckoos, which use multiple host species to raise their chicks evolve different gentes, each one specific to its host species. This specialisation allows the parasites to lay eggs that mimic those of their hosts, which in turn reduces the chances of the eggs being rejected by the hosts, with about 5% of well-matched eggs compared to 72% of mismatched eggs rejected.
Edgar Percival Chance (1881–1955) was a British businessman, ornithologist and oologist who amassed a collection of 25,000 birds' eggs. He is noted for his pioneering studies on the parasitic breeding behaviour of the common cuckoo.
Robin Baker is a British novelist, popular science writer, lecturer and broadcaster. A best-selling author in the field of sexual biology his books have been translated into 27 different languages. These include the international bestseller Sperm Wars which was based on his own lab's original research on human sexuality. His work and ideas on the evolution of human behaviour have been featured in many radio and television programmes around the world.
Timothy Robert Birkhead is a British ornithologist. He has been Professor of Behaviour and Evolution at the University of Sheffield since 1976.
John Weaver Fitzpatrick is an American ornithologist primarily known for his research work on the South American avifauna and for the conservation of the Florida scrub jay. He is currently the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.
The Godman-Salvin Medal is a medal of the British Ornithologists' Union awarded "to an individual as a signal honour for distinguished ornithological work." It was instituted in 1919 in the memory of Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin.
The Alfred Newton Lecture is an academic prize lecture awarded by the British Ornithologists' Union. It is named for Alfred Newton.
Kathy Martin is a Canadian ornithologist and an expert on arctic and alpine grouse and ptarmigan, and on tree cavity-nesting vertebrates. She is a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, and was a senior research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. From 2018 to 2020 she was president of the American Ornithological Society. Martin retired from the Canadian Federal Government in December 2020, and remains an emeritus scientist.
Patricia Monaghan is Regius Professor of Zoology in the Institute of biodiversity, animal health & comparative medicine at the University of Glasgow.
Sarah Wanless is an animal ecologist in the UK and is an expert on seabirds; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Rebecca M. Kilner FRES is a British evolutionary biologist, and a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Cambridge.
Nichola Jayne Raihani is a British psychologist who is a Professor of Evolution and Behaviour at University College London. Her research considers the evolution of cooperation in nature. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2019. Her first book, The Social Instinct, was released in 2021.
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