Research Associate

Dr Claire Spottiswoode PhD (Cantab) Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Tel: +44 1223 331 759 Fax: +44 1223 336 676 Email: cns26 at cam.ac.uk

Activities and Research Interests

Homepage @ University of Cambridge

Claire Spottiswoode was born in Cape Town and did her BSc(Hons) at UCT. She then moved to the University of Cambridge for her PhD, and stayed on as a Junior Research Fellow and, currently, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow. Since 2005 she has also been a Research Associate at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, with the Centre of Excellence providing crucial support to her field research in Zambia.

Claire's research interests lie in the evolutionary ecology of African birds, and integrate field experiments with techniques drawn from other fields such as population genetics and sensory ecology. Her current focus is on host-parasite coevolution, especially arms races between the brood parasitic Cuckoo Finch and Greater Honeyguide and their respective hosts in Zambia. Questions include how parasites have evolved adaptations to exploit different host species, how hosts evolve counter-defences (such as polymorphisms in egg appearance) and how these may change through time, and how host-specific adaptations are inherited within a single parasitic species. Her other areas of past and present research include life history evolution, sexual selection, bird migration, and (particularly in Ethiopia and Mozambique) conservation of threatened species.

Research programmes