 |
| |
|
|
| |
| Research
Programmes |
|
 |
 |
|
| |
| Research Opportunities |
| Field
assistant positions will be advertised from time to time.
Field assistants
are sought mainly for the breeding season (September – March).
|
|
Students interested in conducting postgraduate research
on the pied babblers are welcome to make queries regarding
current opportunities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Staff,
Students & Associates
Honorary Research Associate
Activities and research interests
Dr Amanda Ridley was awarded a PhD degree from the University
of Cambridge following her research on the causes and
consequences of helping behaviour in the cooperatively breeding
Arabian Babbler (Turdoides squamiceps) in Israel. She was
then awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by Newnham College,
Cambridge. During her time there, she established the Pied
Babbler Research Project in South Africa. Amanda then spent four
years at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute as a Postdoctoral
Research Fellow. She has recently moved to a position as
Research Fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia,
but remains an Honorary Research Associate at the FitzPatrick
Institute. Amanda still spends about half her year in South
Africa, actively conducting research at the Pied Babbler
Research Project study site. Her main interests lie in sexual
selection, the causes and consequences of helping behaviour,
interspecific interactions and communication, kin recognition,
group dynamics and life-history strategies. There are now a
number of academics and students conducting research with Mandy
at the Pied Babbler Research Project. Amanda's research
interests are based primarily in behavioural and evolutionary
ecology, with particular reference to cooperatively breeding
species.
Research Programmes
Cooperative Breeding and Sociality in Birds (including the
Pied Babbler Research Project)
Current students
Doctoral
David Humphries: (Macquarie University): Mechanisms and
consequences of social recognition in the cooperatively breeding
Pied Babbler (Supervisors: Mandy Ridley, Simon Griffith & Matthew
Bell)
Recent peer-reviewed
publications
Child, M.F., Flower, T.P. & Ridley, A.R. 2012.
Investigating a link between bill morphology, foraging ecology and
kleptoparasitic behaviour in the fork-tailed drongo. Animal Behaviour
IP. IF 3.493
Du Plessis, K.L., Martin, R.W., Hockey, P.A.R.,
Cummingham, S.J. & Ridley, A.R. 2012. The costs of keeping cool in a warming
world: implications of high temperatures for foraging, thermoregulation and
body condition of an arid-zone bird. Global Change Biology
18:3063-3070. IF 6.862
Flower, T.P., Child, M.F. & Ridley, A.R. 2012. The
ecological economics of kleptoparasitism: pay-offs from self-foraging versus
kleptoparasitism. Journal of Animal Ecology IP. IF 4.937
Golabek, K.A., Ridley, A.R. & Radford, A.N. 2012. Food availability affects
strength of seasonal territorial behaviour in a cooperatively breeding bird.
Animal Behaviour 83:613-619. IF 3.493
Mzumara, T.I., Hockey, P.A.R. & Ridley, A.R. 2012.
Re-assessment of the conservation status of Malawi’s ‘Endangered’
Yellow-throated Apalis Apalis flavigularis. Bird Conservation
International 22:184-192. IF 1.25
Nelson-Flower, M.J., Hockey, P.A.R., O’Ryan, C. & Ridley, A.R. 2012.
Inbreeding avoidance mechanisms: dispersal dynamics in cooperatively breeding
pied babblers. Journal of Animal Ecology 81:875–882. IF 4.937
Ridley, A.R. 2012. Invading together: the benefits of coalition dispersal in a
cooperative bird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 66:77-83.
IF 3.179
Ridley, A.R., Nelson-Flower, M.J. & Thompson, A.M.
(in press). Are sentinels safe? An experimental investigation. Animal
Behaviour IP. IF 3.493
Ridley, A.R. & Thompson, A.M. 2012. The effect of Jacobin Cuckoo Clamator
jacobinus parasitism on the body mass and survival of young in a new host
species. Ibis 154:195–199. IF 2.43
Thompson, A.M. & Ridley, A.R. (in press) Do
fledglings choose wisely? An experimental investigation into social foraging
behaviour. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology DOI
10.1007/s00265-012-1426-0. IF 3.179
Hockey, P.A.R., Sirami, C.,
Ridley, A.R., Midgley, G.F. & Babiker, H.A. 2011. Interrogating recent range
changes in South African birds: confounding signals from land use and climate
change present a challenge for attribution. Diversity and Distributions
17:254-261. IF 4.83
|
|
|
Last modified:
2013/03/03
Copyright: Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology 2013
Please address any comments or enquiries
about this website to the page coordinator.
|
|
