alex.m.thompson
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Publications
  • Photos
  • Research
  • Collaborators
  • Blog

my thoughts on science

Some interesting papers

10/30/2012

0 Comments

 
This isn't going to be a big commentary on some new research but there are a couple of things that I have read recently that are quite interesting, for a variety of reasons. They are really diverse and so I will put the html address and a brief comment on them.

First one: Brault et al (2012) Detecting Deception in Movement: The Case of the Side-Step in Rugby Plos ONE
As a rugby player I just really liked the idea behind this paper, and found it amazing that so much money could be spent on research into side-stepping.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0037494

Second one: Hocking et al (2012) Leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) use suction and filter feeding when hunting small prey underwater Polar Biology
This was cool because it just shows that even apex predators need to be flexible in their foraging habits, and the amazing way in which animals can adapt to different food sources.
I have put the link to the summary on the Nature website.
http://www.nature.com/news/leopard-seals-suck-up-krill-like-whales-1.11672?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20121030

Final one: Węgrzyn (2012) Intensity of mouth coloration in Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla nestlings affects food distribution among siblings but not provisioning of the whole brood Ibis
I liked this paper because it goes against many preconceptions about gape colour in nestling signalling. Normally, it is assumed that a more vibrant gape colour will increase provisioning to a nestling but the opposite occurs in this case. I love papers that go against norms and expectations.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ibi.12004/full
0 Comments

Sweet home kalahari (where the skies are so blue)

10/30/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
So I am off back up to the babbler project, a couple of weeks later than I had orginally planned. The birds are breeding late this year, after what seems to have been a chaotic winter (lots of the dominants seem to have died or gone missing). But I will not just be going up for a couple of weeks but for two and a half months, while writing up my PhD! With the amazingly poor quality of the internet in the remote north Northen Cape, I will have limited access to papers. Therefore, starting from next week I will be on a paper binge: downloading any paper that might in some sense be useful. I am hoping that being in the kalahari will help with my writing up, seeing the birds usually makes me happy and so, fingers crossed, they can push me through to the finish. The only problem with seeing the birds again is that my mind will start finding new questions to ask about their behaviour, and develop new experiments. But maybe that will help me write a decent proposal for a post doc, who knows!

0 Comments

The rhino with no horn

10/18/2012

0 Comments

 
On Wednesday a former Fitz PhD student, who now works for WWF South Africa's Rhino program, came to give us a talk about WWF's new 5 point plan to reduce rhino poaching in South Africa. It was a depressing talk, in so much as the story of the rhino goes. Rhino's were far more widespread in Africa than they are today, now they are only really in the southern part of the continent. At the start of the century black rhino (Diceros bicornis) were also numerous and white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) were almost extinct, and now this situation has been reversed. South Africa has been pivitol in the conservation of the white rhino, but since 2007 poaching in the country has sky rocketed. However, this talk offered hope and inspiration, because WWF had plans to tackle poaching. One of the hopes that WWF and the department of environmental affairs had was to try to reduce the demand from the major consumer of rhino horn: Vietnam. In Vietnam it is used as a cancer cure, but more commonly among the nouveau riche as a hangover cure. But the first step in negotiating with Vietnam seems to have been snubbed, LINK. It is understandable why many poor Africans would engage in poaching, when horns are so valuable and they are so poor, but for a developing countries government not to see the error of its ways is unforgivable. If demand can be reduced then it will become less profitable, and there is one thing that behaviour ecology has taught me: individuals are far less likely to engage in risky behaviours if the pay-off's are low. I think that if we can change the consumers habits, make them see bloody pictures of poached rhinos, then we can make this awful trade unprofitable. This needs to stop, now.
0 Comments

Fire & data

10/16/2012

0 Comments

 
Yesterday I learnt a very important lesson, that I probably should have already learned. Back up your data! I was happily doing some sound analysis, and it's rare to be happily doing sound analysis for those who have never done it, when I noticed the smell of burning plastic. I looked to my left and saw smoke issuing from my desktop, as if Kiss were about to walk out from behind my computer. I turned the computer off at the mains, raced to get the techie and then we took it to a safe place and then opened it up. There was a small flickering flame on the back of the CD drive, and a light blow on it put it out. Fortunately everything was OK. But for a good few minutes I had visions of my last few weeks work disappearing. My heart was racing because I had not backed up for about 3 weeks! Lesson learned, weekly back ups!
0 Comments

Do fledglings choose wisley?

10/10/2012

0 Comments

 
So here is the abstract for my first primary authored paper. Here is the link if anyone wants to download it LINK. I would have loved to publish it open access, but there is no way I can afford $3000. Open access prices are a JOKE (but that is another blog! But if anyone can't access it and wants a copy then email me.

ABSTRACT
Many cooperative bird species have an extended period of post-fledging care. Despite the fact that this period of care can last up to several months, it remains a relatively understudied stage of chick development. This period, when young are actively begging but highly mobile, provides an opportunity for young to maximise the amount of care they receive by selectively choosing particular adults to beg from. In pied babblers Turdoides bicolor (a cooperatively breeding passerine), fledglings closely follow foraging adults and beg for food regularly (a behavioural interaction termed social foraging). Using a combination of natural observations and experimental manipulations, we found that fledgling pied babblers preferentially socially forage with adult care-givers who have high foraging success, since this results in young receiving more food. By supplementally feeding adults to artificially increase their foraging success, we increased the proportion of time that fledglings chose to socially forage with them, confirming that fledglings are selectively choosing dyadic interactions with the best adult foragers. These results indicate that pied babbler fledglings are sensitive to and can respond to short-term changes in adult foraging success, enabling themto maximize their nutritional intake, a behavioural adjustment that has long-term benefits in this system.
Picture
0 Comments

TED talks

10/10/2012

0 Comments

 
This may not be a new thing to people, but I have only just found out about them. TED talks are a collection of talks given by many different speakers, who are all leaders in their fields. The speakers can be anything from authors and scientist, to philosophers and comedians. They are usually about 15 minutes long. They are really interesting and very diverse, often coming at things from a new angle. I throughly recomend them, although they are add
0 Comments

1st pub!!

10/1/2012

0 Comments

 
I can't put a link to it yet but yesterday I had my first primary author paper accepted. I wont say anything about it just yet, as I want to put a link to it, and post the abstract, when it finally gets published. I just wanted to thank Mandy Ridley, there is no way I would have been able to do this without you. All those drafts that she read through, and helpful tips while I was doing my research, not to mention actually setting up the population and data protocols in the first place! I just want to say thanks and dedicate it to you.
0 Comments

    Author

    I am a behavioural ecologist, my main interests revolve around familial conflicts and their resolutions. However, my scientific interests are fairly broad.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    90
    99 Percent Invisible
    99pi
    Africa
    Alien Species
    Allee Effect
    Altruism
    Amazon
    Andreas Wagner
    Anthropocene
    Apostle Bird
    Arabian Babbler
    Attenborough
    Babbler
    Badger Cull
    Badgers
    Banded Mongoose
    BBC
    Bee
    Big Bang Fair
    Bighorn Sheep
    Biodiversity
    Biological Control
    Biology
    Biology Letters
    Bird For Britain
    Birds
    Birthday
    Black Sparrowhawk
    Blogs
    Book
    Book Review
    Breeding
    Brood Parasitism
    Brown Tree Snake
    Burying Beetles
    Butterflies
    Butyric Acid
    Camel
    Cane Toad
    Chemicals
    Chernobyl
    Chimp
    Chronotype
    CITES
    Climate Change
    Cod
    Collaborations
    Color
    Colour
    Colour Vision
    Common Misunderstandings
    Communication
    Competition
    Conference
    Conflict
    Conservation
    Conservatism
    Conservative
    Cool Papers
    Cool Research
    Cooperation
    Crime
    Crows
    Cuckoo
    Dad Media
    Dailymail
    Dalai Lama
    Darting
    Darwin
    Darwin's Finches
    Deception
    Deception Africa
    Decision Making
    Deer
    DES
    Dieter Lukas
    Disney
    Diving
    Documentary
    Dominance
    Drongo
    Eavesdropping
    Economics
    Education
    Elephants
    Epigenetics
    EU
    Evil
    Evolution
    Evolutionary Approach
    Extracurricular
    Fear
    Fennec Fox
    Filming
    Fish
    Fittness
    Fitz
    Football
    Foraging
    Fork Tailed Drongo
    Fork-tailed Drongo
    Free Radicals
    Future
    Gastranaut
    Good Genes
    Ground Squirrel
    Group Living
    Grouse
    Guardian
    Hands
    Hedgehog
    Hero
    Home Advantage
    Honeyguide
    Hornbill
    Hot Birds
    Human
    Human Impact
    Human-wildlife Conflict
    Hummingbirds
    Inbreeding
    Intelligent Bird
    Interesting Research
    Intrasexual
    Invasive Species
    Isbe 2014
    Ivory
    Kalahari
    Kardashian
    Kenya
    Kids
    K-index
    Koala
    Language
    Larks
    Learning
    Long-term
    Male-male Competition
    Male Tenure
    Mantis
    Mating
    Meerkat
    Meta-analysis
    Mice
    Misconceptions
    Miya Warrington
    Mongoose
    Moths
    Mysogyny
    Natural Selection
    Nepotism
    Nestling Growth
    New Papers
    New Research
    Niche
    NO2
    Nuclear
    Old Boys Club
    Olfaction
    Ornithology
    Overfishing
    Owls
    Oxidative Stress
    Parental Care
    Peer Review
    Percy FitzPatrick Institute
    Pest Control
    Pesticides
    Phd
    Phd Comics
    Phenotypic Plasticity
    Pheromones
    Pied Babbler
    Pied Babblers
    Pied Crows
    PLoS One
    Poaching
    Podcasts
    Politcians
    Political Views
    Polymorphism
    Poor Reporting
    Population Change
    Population Decline
    Population Dynamics
    Precautionary Principle
    Public Understanding
    Raccoon
    Radiolab
    Raihani
    Random
    Raptors
    Reciprocity
    Red Deer
    Referendum
    Regulation
    Research
    Resource Dispersion Hypothesis
    Robin
    Rum
    Running
    Schools
    Science
    Science Education
    Science In The News
    Scientific Method
    Scimitarbill
    Scotland
    Seagull
    Sexism
    Sexual Conflict
    Sexual Selection
    Shrikes
    Signalling
    Singing
    Smell
    Sociality
    South Africa
    Speach
    Spring
    Stealing
    STEM
    STEMtech
    Stuff You Missed In History Class
    Stuff You Should Know
    Suppression
    Syntax
    SYSK
    Tamarisk
    TBT
    Teaching
    Temperature
    Theft
    Theory Of Mind
    The Telegraph
    The Times
    Tigers
    Tim Peake
    Top 10
    Tories
    Trees
    Uganda
    UK
    Urban
    Urban Animals
    Urbanisation
    Weaver
    Wheel
    Wild
    Winning
    Wood Wide Web
    World Cup
    World's Sneakiest Animals
    Wrinkle
    Youtube Channels
    Zebra Mussel

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.