The Masters by Research (MbyRes) in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour involves spending the duration of the course (one year full-time, two years part-time) conducting an independent research project with the support of a dedicated supervisor. This provides excellent preparation for careers in further research (e.g. PhDs), and non-academic and commercial sectors.
Details of the course can be found here and by emailing Anne Robertson. Prospective students should contact a potential project supervisor to discuss a project topic before applying. Potential supervisors are any member of academic staff in the School of Life and Health Sciences, e.g. staff in the Centre for Research in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour and in the Centre for Research in Evolutionary, Social and Interdisciplinary Anthropology. Listed below are details of some potential supervisors and outline project titles, but this is not an exhaustive list. Please do get in touch with any member of academic staff whose research interests you to discuss potential project ideas.
Prof Lewis Halsey
Email | Research Pages | Twitter
My present research quantifies the energetic costs of animals, their adaptations to minimise these energy costs, and how energy expenditure varies depending upon the characteristics of the ambient environment. I also take a classic comparative approach to my studies, investigating differences between species and how these differences relate to their varying life histories and habitats. Presently, I have opportunities for students to undertake research into the metabolism and behaviour of air-breathing diving animals based at Europe’s largest aquarium in Spain.
Masters by Research Projects
- The behavioural physiology of air-breathing divers, and related projects on aquatic animals, all based at the Foundation Oceanografic in Valencia, Spain
Dr Julia Lehmann
We are deeply social organisms – but why? Why are friends so utterly important for us and to what extent is this special to human and primates? I am particularly interested in the evolution of sociality and the effect of social integration on health and wellbeing. How universal is social buffering, how do species differ in their level of sociality and what is driving the choice of social partners? What are the costs and consequences of social relationships and how do they change during development or after disruption? To address these broad questions I am using a variety of approaches, from social network analysis, to modelling techniques, field observations and thermal imaging across a range of species.
Masters by Research Projects
- Social integration: causes, consequences and ontogeny
- Social buffering in despotic versus egalitarian systems (i.e. how does rank or lack of rank affect sociality and its consequences)
- Animal friendships (within and between species)
Isabel Santos Magalhaes
Email | Research Pages | Research Group Site
My research focuses on trying to understand the evolutionary processes that promote and constrain organismal diversification, especially in the context of changing and dynamic environments. My main study systems are fish (three-spined stickleback and cichlid fish). My research integrates data from multiple sources combining conventional genetics and next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques with ecological datasets collected directly from the field.
Masters by Research Projects
- What is the role of natural selection in shaping patterns of morphological diversification in recently adapted fish?
- Morphological and genetic diversity of fish populations in urban environments. This project requires field work (within London), so will ideally start in the summer months.
- Resource use diversity in natural populations of three-spine stickleback fish.
Dr Daniel Perkins
Email | Research Pages | Twitter
My research focuses on understanding the structure and functioning of ecosystems. An ecosystem is more than the sum of its parts and by studying trophic interactions between species (e.g. food webs) and their environment (e.g. temperature) we can gain key information about the pathways of energy flow that bring about real change in natural systems. I use a range of approaches from small-scale laboratory experiments, field surveys and large ecological datasets and my work searches for common mechanisms operating across aquatic and terrestrial realms.
Masters by Research Projects
- Exploring the effects of environmental warming on predator-prey interactions (co-supervisor Dr Andrea Perna, University of Roehampton)
- Comparing the structure and dynamics of temperate and tropical food webs (co-supervisor Dr Victor Saito, UFSCar, Brazil)
- Understanding differences in food web structure across terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems
Dr Andrea Perna
Email | Research Pages | Research Group Site | Twitter
My research focuses on how multiple organisms and individuals interact together to solve problems that would not be accessible to individual animals or individual species. This is a question that I believe is central to ecology, but also to biology in general. More specific examples of research questions involve, how do schooling fish move together in synchrony and continuously negotiate a common direction of motion without a leader? How do social insects build collectively nests with a coherent structure that are thousands of times bigger than the insects themselves? How different organisms interact together to form ecological communities that can remain stable for an indefinite time but then sometimes suddenly collapse and re-organise into a different community with different properties and function
Masters by Research Projects
- Social organisation and collective nest building in ants.
- Linking chase-escape behaviour to ecology in unicellular predator-prey systems.
- Exploring the “rules of interaction” of shoaling fish
Dr Julia Reiss
Email | Research Pages | ResearchGate
I am a freshwater biologist with a particular interest in the taxonomy and ecology of aquatic fauna (e.g. microscopic animals such as ciliates and meiofauna). My past research has always focussed on testing theoretical ecology on assemblages of aquatic invertebrates. I have combined field observations and laboratory experiments in the past to assess assemblage patterns of freshwater invertebrates, but have also used them as model systems for testing general theoretical ecology.
Masters by Research Projects
- Linking food quantity and environmental temperature to population sizes of microbes
Prof Anne Robertson
I am a community ecologist with a particular interest in aquatic subsurface habitats such as aquifers and hyporheic zones (the area beneath the bed of rivers and streams). I explore how the simple, unique food webs that occur in aquifers respond to disturbances such as flooding and pollution. I am also interested in drivers of hyporheic zone community composition, and how these communities respond to emerging organic compounds (e.g. personal care products and pharmaceuticals). I use both field surveys and laboratory experiments in my work.
Masters by Research Projects
- Does grazing by groundwater macroinvertebrates alter activity and functioning of groundwater biofilms
- How do hyporheic zone food webs respond to emerging organic contaminants?
- What are the impacts of short term temperature change on groundwater organisms?