Staff, Students & Associates

Doctoral Students

Owen Davies John Day Building: 2.09 Tel: +27 (0)21 650 3303 Fax: +27 (0)21 650 3295 Email: owen.davies@uct.ac.za

About Owen

Owen’s interest in wildlife and biology sprouted at an early age, an early edition of Austin Roberts’ ‘The Birds of South Africa’ that he received for Christmas in 1989 remains one of his favourite possessions, as it is beautifully illustrated by N.C.K. Lighton and masterfully recoloured by a 6 year old boy. Owen soon realised that his colouring skills were taking a back seat to his ever growing fascination with the natural world, and that a career in biology would surely be worth pursuing.

He attended school in Cape Town, winning the prize for the highest mark in biology in his matric year and graduated with a BSc from UCT majoring in botany and zoology. He graduated with BSc (Hons) the following year where his research focussed on age- and sex-based variation of parasite loads in helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) under the supervision of Prof. Tim Crowe (PFIAO) and Dr. Kerstin Junker (DVTD, Pretoria), which resulted in the description of a new species of nematode.

Amusingly, the group of birds that the artful Owen considered so dull and brown that they needed colouring-in back in 1989, are now the focus of his research. Owen began work on his Masters thesis working on the systematics, taxonomy and biogeography of cisticolas under the supervision of Prof. Tim Crowe (PFIAO) and Rauri Bowie (University of California, Berkeley) in 2008. He upgraded his thesis from a Masters to a PhD at the beginning of 2011.

Thesis

Owen Davies: Taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of African cisticolas. (Supervisor: Tim Crowe)

Recent peer-reviewed publications

2011

Davies, O.R., Crowe, T.M. & Bowie, R. 2011. Taxonomy, systematic and biogeography of ‘marsh cisticolas’, Cisticola spp. Proceedings of the Congresses of the Southern African Society for Systematic Biology, Grahamstown 19-21st January 2011, hosted by the Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University. (Abstract)  No IF

2008

Davies, O.R, Junker, K, Jansen, R, Crowe, T.M. & Boomker, J. 2008. Age- and sex-based variation in helminth Infection of helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) with comments on Swainson’s spurfowl (Pternistis swainsonii) and Orange River francolin (Scleroptila levaillantoides). South African Journal of Wildlife Research 38 (2): 163-170

Junker, K., Davies, O.R., Jansen, R., Crowe, T.M. & Boomker, J. 2008. Nematodes of Swainson’s spurfowl Pternistis swainsonii and Orange River francolin Scleroptila levaillantoides from the Free State province, South Africa, with a description of Tetrameres swainsonii, sp. nov. (Nematoda: Tetrameridae). Journal of Helminthology 82: 365-371